'Luckily my sister was rescued and the only thing lost was her car'

There is anger in Edinburgh's Spanish communities and a determination to help after the Valencia disaster

Scene of devastation in Paiporta, Valencia: Pic from one of the many gofundme campaigns established after the disaster

Nicolas Ferreria hesitates. It is difficulty for him to recount the growing sense of anxiety and helplessness he felt watching from Edinburgh as mud-filled floods swept through Valencia, his home, writes Rebecca Johns.

Even before anyone in the UK knew of the scale of the disaster that was to come, Nicolas was receiving footage from old friends, showing “crazy winds, hurricanes, and even a tornado” that had formed close to the city.

He has been living in Scotland’s Capital for four years now, enjoying his student life, but in that instance, his distance from his family, who still live in the area, became a source of concern.

Since the deadly storm hit Nicolas’s home on Halloween weekend, almost 220 bodies have been recovered with around 100 more people still missing. As the waiting hours passed without word, Nicolas’s fears grew. “I realised this wasn’t just another big storm; this was something extraordinary. The videos began circulating rapidly, showing people, cars, and even a bridge being swept away by the water. It was genuinely heartbreaking to see my city and my people like that, at the mercy of the environment.”

Fellow expat Lucia Leiras also lives in Edinburgh, and described her distress at being unable to contact her sister who lives in one of Spain’s hardest-hit towns, Paiporta.

“I was incredibly worried. I didn’t imagine it would be this bad. We couldn’t reach her for a full day, but the last we heard, she was at home with her daughter. Luckily, they were rescued, and the only thing they’ve lost is their car.”

Lucia plans to return to Valencia, taking time out from her job in finance, to reunite with her sibling.

Nearly 5000 Spanish-born emigrants reside here in Edinburgh, a community which is organised and has its own networks such as “Spaniards in Edinburgh”, a Facebook group with over 17,000 members, or SpanSoc, a club at The University of Edinburgh with more than 200 members.

So it was inevitable that when the news broke late on the 29 October that eastern Spain had been hit by a year’s worth of rain in just eight hours, the networks lit up with people desperate for information. Within no time, countless social media posts called for action to support those back home suffering in the aftermath of the destruction.