Heavy rains, strong winds, problems on Rodalies... The start of the year for Imma Solé as deputy director of Civil Protection has been intense. She speaks to ARA from the Emergency Centre of Catalonia (CECAT), in the Ministry of Interior, a space where she has spent hours and hours locked away managing emergencies.

Firefighters' rescue teams located the body of a man on Tuesday night who, pending identification, could be the Fontanilles resident, around sixty years old, who was swept away with his car in the morning in the Palau-sator stream (Baix Empordà) due to the storm HarryWhile the river is usually dry, the town's mayor, Jordi Riembau, noted that on Tuesday it carried "five or six meters of water" after being collected from the Les Gavarres massif. The 112 emergency service received the alert at 7:30 a.m., at the same time that Civil Protection sent the ES-Alert message to mobile phones in four districts of Girona: Alt Empordà, Baix Empordà, La Selva, and Gironès. Throughout the day, ground teams searched for the man, but had to suspend the water search because conditions were unsafe in the area where the Ter and Daró rivers meet. Air teams (a helicopter and drones) continued the search with the support of some ground personnel. Once the river level in the stream receded, the roof of the vehicle became visible, and firefighters located it.

An unexpected flash flood. A power outage that lasts longer than expected. A forest fire that forces people to stay home. Emergency situations, increasingly common in a context of climate change and heavy technological dependence, can catch us off guard. But, according to the new Civil Protection campaign From the Generalitat, it doesn't have to be that way. The key is as simple as having a kit Prepare an emergency kit at home to face any unforeseen event and be self-sufficient for up to 72 hours, that is, three days.

It was April 28th, a sunny spring Monday that was expected to be calm. It was the day chosen by the Catalan Civil Protection agency to film an advertisement about the kit An emergency kit: it's a backpack everyone should keep in their front door, containing essential items to cope with a crisis for 72 hours. The advertisement explained what should be packed in the kit and why it was important to have one. What happened that day further highlights the need for these kits. kitsSuddenly, the circuit breakers in every house tripped, trains stopped, and cell phone coverage began to fail. in a general blackout on the Iberian PeninsulaThe recording of the advertisement was postponed, and the campaign was finally launched this Monday.

This Monday at 10:00 AM, the phones of more than five million people rang simultaneously. Civil Protection sent a mass alert as part of an emergency drill to all mobile phones with coverage and connected to antennas in the Barcelonès, Baix Llobregat, Maresme, Vallès Oriental, and Vallès Occidental regions. This meant that it affected everyone in this area, including those passing through on the road or using public transport at the time of activation.

A 71-year-old woman and her 40-year-old daughter were injured when part of the floor of their home, a first-floor apartment on Virgen de Lourdes Street in Badalona, collapsed shortly after 10:30 a.m. The poor condition of the beams brought down the first-floor formwork and created a hole between three and four meters in the kitchen. The elderly woman, who was having breakfast in this room at the time, fell to the floor below, which fortunately was empty. The daughter was injured after trying to help her mother and father, who were also in the apartment. "Otherwise, they would both have fallen," she told ARA. The victims were treated at the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital, where the mother remains hospitalized with "considerable injuries."

Some of the campers who were there early Monday morning They had to run to escape the flames The evacuation of 18 campsites at the Vendrell Platja campsite was chaotic the following day. Witnesses complained that the campsite didn't use its PA system to warn of the fire and that there were no emergency exits. In fact, some users mistook an access point for staff members for the emergency exit and tried, unsuccessfully, to escape through that door, but the padlock on it couldn't be opened.

A 73-year-old man from Rubí died this Tuesday afternoon in the Via Sabadell shopping center after a concrete panel from the main facade of the Galerías del Tresillo store fell on him. 12 meters high and 6 meters wide, and weighed more than 10 tons. The man was accompanied by his wife, who was unharmed.

An incident on Telefónica's network knocked out landline and internet services for several companies and public services in Spain for hours on Tuesday, affecting emergency telephone lines in several autonomous communities. The outage, which had a lesser impact in Catalonia, occurred following a network update, according to the company, which declared the incident resolved at midday.

The Generalitat (Catalan Government) is considering incorporating key services and infrastructure, such as railway operators and some oil and electricity companies, into the RESCAT network, its emergency and security radio communications system. The goal is to ensure internal (within the services themselves) and external (with Civil Protection) contact. in case an emergency is declared that compromises conventional communication networks. According to ARA, this is one of the measures on the table by Salvador Illa's government to provide an integrated response that guarantees the continuity of strategic services in "situations of widespread failure," such as the one caused two weeks ago by the general blackout on the Iberian Peninsula.

Starting at 12:31 on Monday, as soon as the massive power outage hit the Iberian Peninsula, the Spanish telecommunications operators with their own networks (MásOrange, Telefónica, Vodafone, and Digi) held their crisis teams. At each meeting, they assessed how the power outage would affect their respective services, and specific measures were taken to maximize their continuity. In the case of mobile phones, one company deactivated its 3G service, while another shut down its 5G service.

With the blackout The power cuts arrived. Service coverage vanished. Thousands of people were trapped, especially on trains and in elevators. Traffic lights went dark, with the risk of a collision at any intersection. And at Fire Brigade headquarters, fear quickly began to emerge: "The question was: 'Are people calling us? Are calls coming in to 112?'" says David Borrell, Chief Inspector of the Generalitat Fire Brigade. He admits that "certainly" some calls didn't come in, but they have no evidence of any risky situations being missed. The Deputy Director of Civil Protection, Imma Solé, agrees, stating that a widespread inability to contact the emergency line was not detected.

The torrential rains that have fallen in recent hours in the Valencian Country have forced emergency teams to make overnight numerous rescues of vehicles trapped in the water. In addition, in the case of cities such as Valencia, it has caused damage and destruction in some fallas that were in the last night of plantà.

The rescue teams have found early Thursday morning the lifeless body of a minor missing in the collapse of an apartment building on Wednesday in Peniscola, as reported by the emergency services of the Valencian Country. A psychosocial team has moved to attend to the family while they continue the work to locate another person, a woman, who is still missing. Late Wednesday Firefighters and located alive and conscious a third person who was inside the building when it collapsed and had been trapped under the rubble.