SEPTEMBER 25, 1962: THE BIG TRAGEDY UNDER THE MUD

It was a normal day until the sky became dark and a terrible storm changed our lives forever. We mustn't forget that. - Joseph de Ca'th Lon.
 

Terrassa - September, 26th 1962

September, 25 1962

I was a child. We were visiting my grandparents in Terrassa. 

I remember Terrassa like an industrial city plenty of chimneys and factories. The sky was always grey; the workers wore grey clothes; the buildings were grey; life was grey in an important city that was living under a military dictatorship. 

It wasn't easy to visit my family but thanks to our Swiss nationality, nobody could forbid us to do it. My grandparents lived in the centre of the city, near the City Hall Square. Terrassa was one of the most important industrial cities of the state and lots of people lived in the city, the most part of them near the streams in poor huts made of wood and mud.

The previous day, we had visited Barcelona, the capital. Barcelona celebrated its big party and my grandparents thought that it could be interesting for me to enjoy it. Barcelona was a big city, bigger than Terrassa, the biggest city but the feeling was the same: grey people living grey lives and suffering an endless dictatorship.

I didn't understand why my grandparents didn't want to live with us in Geneva where life was plenty of colours and freedom but they had their lives in this city.

It was a typical day of autumn and we went to sleep after having dinner. Suddenly, a light across the window was the first signal. It started to rain. At the beginning, it seemed a normal storm but it wasn't. Hundreds of litres falling over the city and the disasters were tremendous.

More than one thousand people died because of the overflowing. The most important river in the area the Besòs and lots of streams overflowed.

Terrassa, Sabadell, Rubí, Sant Quirze del Vallès, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Ripollet, Mollet del Vallès, Castellar del Vallès, Montcada... 

Terrassa - September, 26th 1962

These cities were desolated by the force of the flood; thousands of people died and thousands and thousands of people lost their homes.

Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Antoni Tàpies, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Fernand Léger, Antoni Clavé, Modest Cuixart, Antoni Cumella and Joan-Josep Tharrats donated their works to an auction. They offered 204 works.

The political situation in 1962 and a nonexistent urban planning were the responsible of that disaster. Nobody paid enough attention about this catastrophe in the high spheres because nine years later, in September 20, 1971, it happened the same, this time with the Llobregat river and with the population of El Baix Llobregat, especially in the cities of Martorell, Sant Boi and Cornellà de Llobregat.

Almost a thousand people died, in a tragedy that someone could have avoided. Nobody did nothing and the tragedy repeated again.

In memoriam.

More information: Flood in the Vallès, 1962

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. 

Karl Marx