Spain’s flood survivors strive to save their photos and memories

TO THE RESCUE Restorers and volunteers collect photographs affected by flooding in Aldaia, Valencia, Spain, on Nov. 8. —PREUTERS

BURJASSOT/ALDAIA, SPAIN—A mud-covered frame holding a wet, disintegrating photo was one of the most precious things that Ana Piedra Carbonell managed to salvage when floodwaters swept away her mother’s house in the eastern Spanish town of Algemesi.

The picture showing Carbonell with her mother, her late father and her sister from decades back was the only family photo in the house to survive the deluge, the worst floods in Spain’s modern history.

A volunteer restorer from the University of Valencia holds a photograph affected by mud from the recent floods, at the laboratory of the Natural History Museum of the Valencia University, in Burjasot, Valencia, Spain November 8, 2024. —PHOTOS FROM REUTERS

Given the state of the print, there is a risk that memento could also disappear. So she joined scores of survivors turning up to see if experts from a project run by the University of Valencia could do anything to save their memories.

“It’s the only keepsake my mother can have because my father passed away when he was 36, and my mother is now 74,” said Carbonell, at one of the collection points set up by the new “Save the Pictures” scheme.

“Furniture and cars can be replaced… (Pictures) are material things but they reach an incalculable sentimental level,” the 44-year-old added. The scheme aims to restore and safeguard damaged photographic heritage and return it to flood-hit communities.

RESURRECTION Scientists and volunteer restorers work to save damaged photographs in a lab in the University of Valencia.

One of the main challenges is the fact that so many of the photos are stuck together, said Marisa Vazquez de Agredos, head of the university’s heritage department.

More than 220 people died after torrential rains on Oct. 29 triggered the flash floods that ravaged the suburbs of Valencia.

The waters also caused untold damage to buildings and property, and to the countless photos and other mementoes that make up family history. Some like Carbonell brought in single shots.

HISTORY ON WHEELS Valencia resident Pilar Gimenez pushes a wheelbarrow of photos that have been in their family for generations.

Pilar Jimenez turned up with her whole family archive, with so much material that a soldier working on the clean-up effort had to use a wheelbarrow to help her bring it in.

“I bring my whole life—my daughters when they were little, my wedding, I don’t know, everything,” said the 65-yearold from Valencia’s suburb of Aldaia. She told staff to make a selection, rather than take the time to save everything.

“My father was very fond of photography, so I also have many photos of myself as a child. So it’s a lot.”