Thanks for the welcome, MadridMan

apologies, if my post appeared promotional. i can assure you it wasnt (i simply dont have anything to advertise, im not in any commercial activity) and there was no agenda there apart from providing admiral44 with a resource he asked for. It just so happend that my info on Las Fallas is the best :-) otherwise id post a link to another site. Its just sometimes the inquiry is very general (like above) and it is unrealistic to transfer 30 pages of content onto a forum, neither would it be welcome.

Anyway, thanks for the welcome again, I will keep looking if i can help anyone, and if i can be of assistance on valencia to you, dont hesitate to get in touch

Welcome back, pingado! I'm sure you didn't mean to promote or advertise intentially. Next time you have information which is included on your site, please simply copy/paste it here in the forum or, in cases of too-much-information, just copy/paste the relative parts. You cannot "re-direct" members to your website for any reason. You can give URLs to OTHER people's/company's websites which are not yours or affiliated with yours though but I usually am quite careful about following up and looking for affiliations. Trust me. I've seen it ALLLL before.

I'm sure if anyone has further questions about Valencia they'll be quick to post their questions here so that you can reply here. We want more interactions and information posted about Valencia, Barcelona, Seville, and all the other cities in Spain.

Saludos, ValenciaMan /MadridMan

Next October the 14th is the 50th aniversary of the most terrible floods ever happened in Spain, that inundated the entire city of Valencia and its sorroundings.

In October the 13th of 1957 it rained the whole day. The 300mm precipation was about two thirds of the average rain in the area for the whole year.

The following night the very very small river Turia (average 14m3/second) was 3800m3/second (130,610ft3/second), wich is 6,5 times bigger than River Hudson in New York Bay or 50% more flow than River Danube in Budapest.

The waters reached the second floor in some parts of the city, destroying some bridges and many buildings, causing a great disaster. After the floods went the mud covered completely the city.

This is a common phenomenon every year in the Spanish Mediterranean coasts. It is called the "gota fría" and it happens when the Mediterranean waters reaches its highest temperatures of the year. Then huge storms enter the land and it rains very heavily.

47 big floods were registered in Valencia City betwen 1321 and 1957. When Romans founded the city the 138 b.c. had already reported floods.

Photo gallery from Levante newspaper

Interesting article written by a historian

Damian - Great historical photos - hard to believe Valencia was ever that much under water/mud - and also that rural!
Thanks for unearthing the photos -

Thanks Puna.
You are right, looking at the pics you realize how rural the city was. In fact all Spain was that rural. In 1957 Valencia was the third biggest city in Spain (according to officials) and also one of the most industrialized areas in the whole country.
So you can imagine the rest of the nation.

In that time many country small villages didn't have sewer systems, electricity, telephones, etc, specially in the north or in the mountains.
TV emissions started in 1957 only in the big cities.
My father, who is from a small village in central Spain was a farmer. In that region all the farming work was made by hand, any machines. My father himself was a harvester man since he was a teenager. People used a sickle to cut the cereals from sunrise to sunset under the summer burning sun of "La Mancha".

Well I could tell dozens of examples but I don't want to bore you.

Saludos

You (your posts) are never boring!