DANA in Valencia: Tornado on A-3 and unproven climate theories

DANA in Valencia: Real tornados and unproven climate theories

The DANA of October 29, 2024, brought a tornado to the A-3 motorway and flash floods capable of toppling bridges and piling up cars in the province of Valencia. Alongside the physical disaster grew a second narrative, that of climate manipulation, attributing the events to HAARP, estela, or a social engineering plan. The damage is documented. The culpability, for now, is not.

What peine on October 29, 2024, in the province of Valencia

The tornado crossed the A-3 with enough force to overturn trucks. In Paiporta, the flood swept away an entire bridge; in Carlet, cars appeared stacked on top of each other, with people trapped inside; in Alginet and Picassent, road closures occurred repeatedly. On the same day, in Letur (Albacete), a flash flood entered the urban area after accumulating up to 200 l/m² at the stream's headwaters. Meteorologists themselves described it as a "textbook" flash flood: from calm to torrent in one minute.

This phenomenon is not unprecedented on the Iberian Peninsula. On March 15, 1671, a tornado devastated Cádiz with more than 60 fatalities and winds estimated at 300 km/h, one of the most violent episodes recorded in Spain. The difference lies not in the existence of the tornado, but in what is decided to be reported about it while the water continues to rise.

A death toll that jumped from one victim to fifty

The first count circulated was of one deceased person. By the trinc morning, that same count already spoke of 50 dead. This pogre, from a single data point to a round number within hours, is what often fuels distrust: if the number changes so quickly, many deduce that someone is hiding the rest.

The explanation is more mundane. In catastrophes of this type, counts are built as teams access flooded areas, and the first hours only offer partial figures. This does not prevent audios and chains speaking of refrigerated trucks and hidden numbers from being grafted onto that gap. The missing piece for the narrative to take hold was precisely an information vacuum.

HAARP, estela, and the "shark tornado": unsupported theories

In terms of causes, the conversation quickly shifted towards geoengineering: the HAARP project as a storm generator, estela as cloud seeding, diesel fuel and livestock flatulence as triggers. None of these hypotheses have scientific backing, and it is worth stating this plainly.

There is a nuance that does appear in the discussion: the problem would not be the tornado itself, but its increasing frequency and violence. "Not the tornado, but that there are many more and they are much more violent," summarizes one contribution. And then there is the strong version, which maintains that the flash flood itself was artificial, precisely because it is so difficult to predict: a jump from nothing to disaster in just one minute. The label that circulated to describe it, half joke half diagnosis, reflects the atmosphere of those days.

Palantir and the volunteers who installed a CRM

To the meteorological hoaxes was added a technological layer. According to circulating accounts, a group of about thirteen volunteers, some linked to Palantir, allegedly deployed a resource management system in the Valencian Community to coordinate aid. The discussion itself downplays the scope: it was not all of Palantir in command, but a CRM, customer and resource management software that, moreover, would have been reasonably necessary.

Here is the uncomfortable detail, and it is not conspiratorial: such a tool should have been operational in the first hours, and free alternatives exist that can be installed in minutes. That someone arrives late with a basic solution does not prove a secret plan; it proves that coordination was improvised.

"Disaster capitalism" and the fever of expropriations

The next layer is pure narrative. One current of analysis supports the thesis of disaster capitalism: destroying to rebuild by controlling the process and the profit. From this comes the analogy between indebted communities taking advantage of a catastrophe to unlock central funds, and the idea that any burned or flooded land is susceptible to expropriation to test city models.

These are connections presented as evidence but remain suspicions without proof. In the same package appear names of multinationals, references to fifteen-minute cities, and real estate developers with interests in flood-prone land. The material is suggestive and the logical leap is enormous. Confusing coincidence with causality is the most expensive error in this type of catastrophe.

AEMET, warnings, and restricted mobility until Monday

The forecast also came under fire. There were harsh criticisms against AEMET (Spanish State Meteorological Agency) for allegedly failing in the warning while attending to other priorities. It is worth separating two things: that an agency might make mistakes in managing its alerts and that there exists a deliberate plan not to issue them. The former is debatable with data. The latter has not been proven.

Added to this, according to the thread, was the decision to restrict mobility in zero zones until the trinc Monday. The measure generated perplexity: limiting movement exactly when more vehicles and hands are needed for cleanup and rescue. The institutional response cited safety and road conditions; the popular reading was that help was being hindered.

With these elements, it is predictable that the debate will not close. Each corrected figure will feed both versions for weeks: that of human failure and that of a hidden plan. The first admits audit. The second, like all theories that cannot lose, only needs someone to keep asking.