One of the cemeteries worst affected by the deadly 'Dana' in Valencia comes back to life

"Temporarily closed due to the storm." It seems almost a play on words but it is the sign that greets would-be visitors to the cemetery of Catarroja (a Valencian town of 29,000 inhabitants), almost at 'ground zero' to the storm damage from the 'Dana' as its neighbouring town is Paiporta where most fatalities occurred. There are some 500 hands willing to help, including volunteers and staff from Eserca (the municipal company that manages the cemetery), working hard to remove all the mud that has turned the walkways of this historic cemetery into a quagmire - a cemetery that dates from 1889 and where 130 mausoleums or family tombs and 6,500 coffin niches are located.

"You should have seen it a few days ago. In some areas the water was more than 1.7 metres high and reached almost halfway up the second row of niches", says Salvador Pons, who has been caretaker and gravedigger here for 19 years (a trade he inherited from his father), and who everyone in Catarroja - a town of nicknames - calls Cacau after the peanut farm that his great-great-grandfather used to run.

Cacau, a diligent man who takes care of "my deceased" as if they were his own flesh and blood, has forgotten to take down the poster announcing the temporary closure. The cemetery finally reopened its doors last Friday to host the first burials, two women aged 73 and 95 who died of natural causes 10 days ago, but who had not been able to be buried until now due to the damage caused by the flood and the impossibility of even gaining entry to the cemetery.

According to a spokeswoman for Panasef, the funeral parlour employers' association in Spain, Valencian families affected by the closure of cemeteries, such as those in Alfafar, Massanassa and Sedaví, are being offered the option of cremation, or transferring the body for burial in another cemetery that is still in operation, or keeping the body in cold storage at their parlours while waiting for everything to be sorted out.

Such a Plan B no longer applies to Catarroja cemetery, which has been in operation since Friday after ten days of hard work cleaning all the walkways and tidying up the niches that were damaged by the force with which the water penetrated on the night of 29 October. This tsunami, this surge of floodwater uprooted the two huge doors of the main entranceway, which weigh 700 kilos each, knocked down part of the stone wall and swept furiously towards the final resting place of the town's dead, causing serious damage to 150 niches and some old family tombs. "We have been cleaning the graves for days because people are calling us asking about their dead and we don't want them to find something unpleasant when they come," explained Cacau.

To avoid these "unpleasant" sights, a legion of volunteers and municipal workers, armed with brushes, shovels and hoses, and supported by machinery, have not stopped in the twin tasks of removing the mud and then cleaning the slabs of the tombs until they are spotless.

The water washed away many tombstones and partitions, leaving the remains of the deceased inside the niches visible. The task of partitioning the graves, sealing the marble and covering the inside once more is what occupies Cacau at the moment. "One or two coffins came out, but we've sorted it out, now we're repairing the damage and tidying up the niches so that everything will be in order if anyone comes to visit the deceased."

The municipal company is trying to locate the families who own the most affected mausoleums so that they can open the doors and check for damage. "We don't have the keys so we can't take action," says María Luisa Martínez, manager with Eserca, who is constantly answering calls while coordinating the clean-up work.

Protected from top to toe in wellies and a face mask, Martínez assured us that the town council's priority is to ensure that the cemetery is ready to receive the families. "If it is hard enough to come to a cemetery, we have to try to make sure that when they come they find it as tidy as possible."

The cemetery, logically, was unable to celebrate All Saints' Day on 1 November, so it is likely that many residents of Catarroja will want to visit their loved ones in the coming days. "A lot of worried people have called me... They are people from Catarroja who, after being left with nothing because of the Dana, have poured their feelings into their loved ones and want to know how their graves are. I put myself in their shoes and I understand perfectly well because I have my father buried here", said Cacau.

Volunteers from Catarroja and other municipalities in Valencia, but also from Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante... were still shovelling and sweeping away the mud yesterday. Rosendo and Teresa, workers on the ERTE furlough scheme at Ford Almussafes, did not stop clearing away the mud that had accumulated between the graves. "It's not where I'd most like to be, but you have to help everywhere," said Rosendo.

At least one of the three burials planned for the next few days corresponds to a resident of Catarroja, a victim of the Dana. The family of another deceased requested that he be cremated because they needed to close the grieving process and be able to focus on recovering their lives after having lost everything.

This is not the case of the sisters Juana and Dolores, daughters of Dolores Comes, one of the women buried this Friday on the day the cemetery reopened. "We were given the option of cremating my mother, but she wanted to be buried next to my father and we have fulfilled her wishes", they told SUR.

The deceased, who was known in Catarroja as Lola la Volcacarros, died the same night as the 'Dana' in her daughter Dolores's home, a ground-floor property in the Las Barracas area, which was completely flooded.

Shortly before the water washed everything away, she, her husband and daughter carried her mother upstairs. "Although sedated, my mother was still alive, but she died shortly after, at 11.45pm that night.

Despite the daughters' unsuccessful efforts to have their mother taken to a mortuary, the answer was always the same. No vehicle could enter the neighbourhood. Dolores' body remained for two days in one of the upstairs bedrooms, covered with two blankets and with the windows open. "We have had her dead at home for two days. It has been very hard. Every time I needed to go into the room I saw my poor mother there."

Finally, and "after forty thousand calls", an official from the Guardia Civil arrived at the house on the 31 October to take Dolores' body to a morgue in the city of Valencia. She has remained there until now. "She has been there alone in a chamber for eight days without our being able to bury her until now. We have not been able to see her again. She had even prepared the photo she wanted at the wake... but there was no wake or anything else", said the sisters, crying. "At least she's with my father now," they console themselves as they say goodbye to their mother, dragging their boots through the mud and blowing a kiss from behind their face masks. "Who would have thought we would bury her like this?"