BREAK OF THE TOUS DAM October 20, 1982 (Part 1)

On October 20, 1982, as a result of torrential rains caused by the cold drop, originated the worst flood in the history of Spain. Affecting Jucar basin that were more intense in the Valencia and Murcia.


On the night of 19 October, heavy rains began extending along the next day exceeding 600mm. Upstream Tous Swamp.
The river Jucar (Xuquer in Valencia, that comes from Arabic and its translation is the devastating) as it passes through the swamp of Tous, grew so that the weak walls and the lack of qualified personnel to hazardous situations in the dam joined inability to open the floodgates (because of the human factor) caused water to overflow the dam, and even when they got to open the floodgates, the amount of water was greater than the capacity of these. So finally broke down the dam. Causing a flood of 16,000 cubic meters per second, which devastated the regions of the Riera Alta and Riera Baja.


The populations most immediate to the dam came to have in their streets 8 meters high of water, such as Sumacàrcer, Beneixida or Gavarda.
The virulence of the water caused severe structural damage to most buildings, that's why Beneixida and Gavarda moved to higher ground, but Sumacàrcer remains in the same place.

This link contains a photographic reportage of "Pantana" (the name by which is called this flood in Valencia realized by the falla Plaza Malva from Alcira  (www.fallamalva.com)

picture of the flood, taken from the link above