Leonardo's 'Ground Zero' in Málaga: Secadero becomes an island without light, without mobile phones, without access to food, medical care, or police

With the historic blackout on April 28, 2025, Spaniards experienced what it was like to live without electricity, internet, and mobile phones, but what would it be like if we added flooded streets, blocked roads, inability to buy food, no doctor, and no access for police and ambulances? The answer is known by the approximately 1,500 residents of El Secadero, a population center in Casares located less than a kilometer from the town of San Martín del Tesorillo, which has been isolated by road since 1:30 PM yesterday and without electricity since 10:30 PM due to the overflowing of the Guadiaro River. In Casares Costa, the Andalusian Government Delegation has established an Advanced Command Post to direct the tasks.

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And the lack of electricity is beginning to "cause chaos," explains the mayor of Casares, Juan Luis Villalón (IU), in a conversation made possible by the landline of the Deputy Mayor's Office of El Secadero, because Villalón is not only a mayor on the front lines but also a resident of El Secadero, a nucleus that is now literally an island. Villalón speaks seriously and the phone conversation is intermittent, at times inaudible, and ends with the mayor saying: "Sorry, but there are people with problems and I need to attend to them."

By then, Villalón has already described how they are living in El Secadero. When he tells it, it's hard not to think that one is listening to the plot of a new Will Smith movie set in an apocalyptic scenario. Because without electricity, the door to the minimarket in the nucleus cannot be opened, so this nucleus in Casares has no more food than what its residents had yesterday. And if someone needs medication? "The pharmacist has left us the key," Villalón reports from the emergency center that the Deputy Mayor's Office has become.

Without electricity, mobile phones will last as long as their batteries do, so communication now depends on that landline from the municipal facilities, "a bar of coverage that we can find," and the walkie-talkies of the only patrol of the Local Police of Casares that is currently in El Secadero. At the time of the conversation, the walkie-talkies are there, but not the officers: they have retired to rest after a shift that started on Wednesday night and has not ended until now. "They can't do anything either," Villalón clarifies. Through the walkie-talkies, they communicate with the head of the Corps and with their colleagues, who are in Casares and have no means to reach El Secadero.

"There are homes that are currently flooded and we cannot remove the water. We were in one yesterday pumping out water with generators, but we had to run because it suddenly started to flood very quickly and we left everything there"

Juan Luis Villalón

Mayor of Casares

"There are homes that are currently flooded and we cannot remove the water. We were in one yesterday pumping out water with generators, but we had to run because it suddenly started to flood very quickly and we left everything there," the mayor recounts. They still have some generators that survived the "unprecedented" rise of the Guadiaro. And they know a lot about this in this nucleus of Casares, which has been isolated three times in the last month alone, the last two times within a week of each other. Is this the most difficult thing they have ever experienced? "Yes, without a doubt," the mayor responds without hesitation.

A "fateful day" and "collapsed" services

Yesterday, he recounts, was a "fateful day" in which "services eventually collapsed." More than 20 people from seven families were evacuated preventively and have been moved to the Ochomin hostel, located in this nucleus of Casares, and one of the two points that, in addition to the Youth House, the City Hall had set up for this purpose since Wednesday afternoon.

Municipal services were also reinforcing the entrances to homes with barriers and bricks to minimize water entry. Others, with water at their doorstep, like a couple aged 74 and 77 who live in El Acebuchal, on the other side of the river, decided to stay. They spoke to them this morning and "they are fine," he reports from the City Hall of Casares, on the other side of the island that El Secadero has become.

No one has news of a resident with problems now. If they did, even without coverage, they could call 112, but without battery, the only option would be to go to a neighbor who does have a phone or to the Deputy Mayor's Office, which is now the guarantee of communication with the outside. A transfer for medical issues or the arrival of help would only be possible now by air means.