After deadly floods, Spaniards fight to save photos

Hundreds of photographs hang in a laboratory, fragile memories of birthdays and summer holidays almost washed away by last year’s deadly floods in Spain.

But thanks to a university-led initiative, many of these memorabilia have been saved from ruin.

Wearing white coats and masks to protect themselves from mold and other contaminants, a group of students from a laboratory at the Polytechnic University of Valencia carefully clean and restore the photos.

A sign next to a pile of mud-stained photo albums at the entrance warns: “Do not touch. Contaminated material.”

Nearby, a pile of empty photo albums still bears traces of the mud that swept across part of the Mediterranean region of Valencia during the torrential rains of October 29, 2024, killing more than 200 people and destroying thousands of homes.

In the chaos that followed, a wave of volunteers rushed to help residents clear the 800,000 tons of debris left by Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in a generation and salvage what they could.

“We started receiving calls from students who were helping in affected areas and noticed that entire albums of photographs were being thrown away,” said Esther Nebot, a professor at the university and co-director of the Salvem les fotos (“Let’s Save the Photos”) project.

“These same students started collecting photographs in their backpacks,” she added, pointing to the freezers where the damaged images were stored before being painstakingly restored.

– ‘Incredibly satisfying’ –

Since the start of the project, around 340,000 images have passed through the laboratory.

Volunteers, students, donors and faculty restored about 75 percent of it.

“The disaster caused enormous losses on a documentary and historical level, but above all on a social level,” Nebot said.

“Many objects have no economic value, or even historical significance, but they carry immense emotional weight.”

Using a small brush and a bucket of increasingly cloudy water, doctoral student Ruth Acuna delicately cleans a black-and-white photograph, barely revealing the portrait of a woman.

The 25-year-old, who has been involved in the project since the beginning, said she was aware of the responsibility of managing the memory of families who have already lost so much.

“Sometimes you see a photo and you think, ‘That’s not going to survive,’ and all of a sudden it’s perfect,” she said. “It’s incredibly satisfying.”

– ‘I cried a lot’ –

At a nearby table, other students carefully dismantle warped albums or disinfect and clean faded photographs, which are then hung to dry.

The most delicate prints, mostly black and white, are flattened between sheets of cardboard to prevent them from curling.

Some images are so damaged that the faces are almost unrecognizable. Others, on the other hand, began to recount fragments of life again.

“It’s very rewarding to clean up photos and, especially when they’re very damaged, to see a face appear,” said student Andrea Baldwin, gently wiping a photo with cotton.

“It fills you up knowing that families can revisit these memories together.”

In an adjacent room, two students scan and categorize images, preparing them to be returned to their owners in a format similar to their original albums.

Nebot, co-director of the project, said the moment when restored photos are returned to families – some of whom are still homeless – is often very emotional.

“We cried a lot,” she said.

“We take the time to show them how we process their photos, and it’s also a way of thanking them for their trust.”

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