Balearics count costs of storms

While the public, recovering from Saturday's storms, brace themselves for the next front, the local government and Palma city council are busy arguing about who is to blame for Saturday's flooding in the capital. Palma council said on Monday that the responsibility of keeping the water way and river beds which run through the city clean is that of the local Ministry for the Environment, but yesterday the Balearics government said that the main cause for the city being flooded out in just one hour is the large amount of building sites, material, machinery and waste dotted about the city. The government accused the council of blaiming the government to hide its own mistakes. Director general of the Balearic Department for the Interior, Antoni Torres, hit back at the city council while briefing the press on how the emergency services responded to the crisis last weekend. Torres said that the two areas worst affected were the Paseo Maritimo and plaza Santa Payesa in Palma “where there are no river beds,” he added for the council's benefit. Torres admitted that on Saturday the Balearics was forced to confront a storm “the region is far from used to,” but he said that the infrastructure proved sufficient to cope, only in Palma were there serious problems. On Saturday the 112 centre handled 3.612 calls, 1.300 more calls than the daily average for August, and responded to 102 incidents. Torres said that the most serious incident on Saturday, when callers had to wait longer than usual for a reply from 112, was the partial collapse of a house in LLuchmajor and a wall which came down blocking a road near Santa Margalida. Emergency services dealt with 28 road accidents, 37 cases of flooding and 7 incidents involving buildings collapsing. Three people were rescued from lifts and three others after being trapped by falling trees. On the Sunday, the flow of emergency calls eased considerably, although the day was marred by the recovery of the fisherman's body off Camp de Mar. Torres stressed that the weather front over the Balearics is still very unsettled and that, while some of us would have been hit by torrential rains again last night, most parts of the island can expect storms, accompanied by some 30 litres per square metre of rain and hail at times, today. Conditions may start to improve this afternoon, but Torres said that people are advised to stay away from the mountains and rivers for the time being. mc.mdbUbitel.es