Spain floods expose flaws in Europe's early warning systems
At 7.36 a.m. on Oct. 29, Spain's national weather service AEMET issued a maximum alert warning of "extreme danger" from flash flooding in Valencia, a densely populated region on the country's east coast.
Due to a slow response by the local government - which is in charge of sending alerts to citizens' phones - news of the danger did not trickle down to the people most at risk.
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So that Tuesday, more than 845,000 people across 68 affected municipalities went about their day as normal - commuting to work, sending children to school - while the most powerful flash floods in recent memory formed after torrential rains lashed the Magro, Turía and Poyo river basins.
It wasn't until 8 p.m., when many Valencians were driving home from work, that the local government sent out an emergency alert warning of the floods and advising people to stay inside.
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Even if alerts reach citizens on time, people need to understand the risk, said Bapon Fakhruddin, who set up the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System after the tsunami in 2004.
"As human beings we always calculate the risk ... if I don't find a fear inside me, I'll not listen to you. Or if I don't trust you, I'll go to another source of information," he said, explaining how it is only when the two match that a person feels a genuine sense of alarm.
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