Add Category
Australia is being urged to heed the lessons of Spain's devastating floods and make sure that warning systems and emergency response capabilities are up to tackling disasters that are becoming more frequent and more intense.
The flash flooding in Spain's Valencia region last month killed more than 200 people and led to widespread anger, with the nation's king and queen being pelted with mud when they visited one of the worst-hit towns.
So how do these recent Spanish floods compare to past events in Australia, and what can we learn?
What happened in Spain?
Spain was inundated with more than a year's worth of rain in a matter of hours on October 29, in one of the worst disasters Europe has had in decades.
Authorities only issued an alert hours after the flooding had already started.
By the time phones were officially alerted at 8pm, muddy waters had already submerged streets and poured into homes.
While locals have criticised the late warnings, the delayed response from emergency responders has also come under scrutiny.
And although the Spanish government has announced billions of dollars worth of aid packages, the perceived mismanagement of the floods has triggered widespread frustration.
How do the floods compare to past Australian disasters?
Roslyn Prinsley is the head of disaster solutions at the Australian National University's Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions
She says there are many similarities between the Spanish floods and the 2022 floods in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.
At least 23 people died in those floods, which swallowed homes and forced people to wait for emergency services on their rooftops.
The NSW Northern Rivers city of Lismore saw record flood levels in excess of 14 metres.
A NSW inquiry into the floods found warnings were not issued in time and the state's emergency services were unprepared for the scale of the disaster.
While the death toll was significantly lower than in Spain, Dr Prinsley says the "terrible" early warning systems seen there were similar to the alerts "which came too late" during the floods in Lismore.
"Disasters are getting much worse, and we're just not catching up with the approaches that we need," she says.
"I don't think there's any excuse for giving such poor early warnings."
Locals in Spain were forced to step in and do the work of emergency services — something Australia has also seen in past disasters.
"They are fundamentally rescuing themselves," says University of Technology Sydney landscape architecture professor Elizabeth Mossop, who has worked on recovery efforts after huge disasters including Hurricane Katrina.
"I think that's something that we see again and again, unfortunately, in the absence of effective government response."
The over-reliance on volunteers was brought up after the 2022 floods by locals in the Northern Rivers, who said they were forced to step in because emergency services did not have the capacity to respond.
Professor Mossop says the Black Summer Fires in 2019 to 2020 also saw people being "rescued by their neighbours and not by emergency services".
A report found 64,500 volunteers were involved in responding to the Black Summer bushfires, representing 78 per cent of the responders.
“We saw this massive mobilisation of the bush fire brigades and the Rural Fire Service, which are staffed in significant part by volunteers,” Professor Mossop says.
The anger directed at authorities from local communities in Spain is also something Australia is familiar with.
Professor Mossop says when former prime minister Scott Morrison went on holiday at the start of Black Summer it led to a massive disconnect between locals and the government.
"[In Spain] those citizens feel like they were abandoned … people have faith that the government is going to provide these services," she says.
"When that doesn't happen, I think that leaves terrible, long-standing scars."
Shaping Australia's response to future disasters
The Spanish floods were caused by a destructive weather system known locally as DANA, which is believed to be becoming more prevalent due to climate change.
Experts are calling for governments to step up work on climate and disaster resilience as extreme weather events become more intense and frequent.
While Australia has a long way to go, Dr Prinsley says we seem to be ahead of Spain in terms of disaster management.
But here are some key things experts say Australia should be reminded of.
Early warning systems
Australia developed a new national disaster warning system in 2021 — after the Black Summer fires, but before the Lismore floods.
The system aims to standardise emergency warnings across the country and make warnings simpler and easier to understand.
It uses a consistent set of icons for different disasters and colours for various warning levels.
Dr Prinsley says warning people about disasters early is "one of the best things" governments can do.
Another important part of the puzzle is local monitoring of things like rainfall and river levels, as official warnings are sometimes not specific enough to certain locations.
Absorbent cities
The recent floods in Spain highlighted the importance of designing towns and cities to resist disasters.
"Sponge urbanisation" is a technique which aims to use green areas in cities to absorb water during floods.
Professor Mossop says although floods cannot be stopped, using more of these green techniques can help change the direction of the water.
But she says the Spanish floods also demonstrated why "robust and resilient" communication and road networks are important.
Avoiding building on flood zones
There are many areas in Valencia that are identified as at risk of flooding.
Professor Mossop says one of the most critical things which could have avoided the impact of the recent floods is planning.
This includes reducing the number of people living near or in flood zones, which could also mean relocating entire communities.
More first responders
Experts warn natural disasters are going to become more intense and frequent as a result of climate change.
Dr Prinsley says Australia needs to start thinking hard about how to match the capacity of first responders to the scale of disasters.
"One is to pay a lot more people to be in your equivalent of the state emergency service," she says.