Spain has its eyes riveted on the intense rains this week in Andalusia. According to meteorological expertsbetween 60 and 80 liters were expected, but the orography has acted as a wall causing accumulations of 180 liters, a scenario where the technology has failed by more than double in a short-term prediction.
However, while the cameras focus on the water running through the streets of white towns, a much quieter and potentially devastating threat is brewing far from the media spotlight. The real technical and military concern lies in the stability of the industrial waste infrastructure in the province of Huelva and part of Seville. Over there, as detailed in the local pressis located the largest toxic waste deposit in Europe. It is a time bomb composed of mud and heavy metals that is being subjected to a water stress test without recent precedents.
What has happened to the mining ponds? Before the arrival of the storm Leonardothe reaction of the authorities has been of unusual speed. Yesterday, the management of the Emergency Plan for the Risk of Floods commissioned the Military Emergency Unit (UME) to carry out an urgent analysis and assessment of the situation of these deposits. Officially, the message it’s calmsince the regional emergency service assures that the work carried out has provided “complete peace of mind” and that “no incident or probable risk” has been detected.
However, the reality on the ground shows a different operational tension. Far from limiting itself to observing, the UME has taken direct action with a massive deployment: a contingent of more than 250 soldiers and 90 specialized vehicles has been mobilized to the area. According to Andalusian public televisionthe troops have installed a retaining wall using “Hesco Bastion” and heavy machinery in the Los Frailes mine, in Aznalcóllar, because the rainwater is already carrying pyrite and they are seeking to prevent it from draining into the reservoir at all costs.
The war of stories. The situation has caused a mix of messages between political prudence, business demands and social alarm. The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, has been unusually explicit about the nature of the danger. As you have collected ABCthe Andalusian president has justified the military mobilization by the need for anticipation, crudely warning that these facilities are “mining ponds that could overflow with materials, some of which are toxic, especially in a very special way in the province of Huelva.”
Faced with this political warning, the industry’s response has been blunt. The company Atalaya Riotinto Minera has issued a statement guaranteeing the safety of the waste deposits at the Riotinto mine. They ensure that their facilities operate normally in accordance with strict technical standards and that these exceptional situations “have been contemplated in the design and construction”, with adequate safety margins. Furthermore, the company wanted to emphasize that it maintains “full communication and coordination” with the competent authorities and the Civil Guard for continuous monitoring of the situation.
At the other extreme, political voices like Izquierda Unida They warn that this is not a drill. The training indicates that the ponds, which accumulate toxic materials after decades of exploitation, enter a “potential situation of risk of breaking” due to the pressure of the water on the slopes. Its provincial coordinator has denounced the “historical inability” to maintain these soils and demands a truthful diagnosis in real time, describing the situation as a non-hypothetical risk.
The ghost of ’98. The fear that runs through the spine of western Andalusia has a memory. The inevitable reference is the disaster of Aznalcóllar from 1998but the current dimensions are much larger. The main focus of the threat today is located in the Riotinto Mining Basin, in the Gossan, Cobre and Aguzadera dams. This complex stores more than 182 million cubic meters of sludge, an amount that exceeds thirty times the volume of the spill that caused the ecological catastrophe almost three decades ago.
Environmental organizations provide disturbing data on current operators. They recall that the Aznalcóllar mine is now managed by a subsidiary of Grupo México, a company with a history of pond failures in its country of origin, such as the one in the Sonora River in 2014. In addition, they denounce that there were already prior warnings: in March 2025, during other intense rains, an episode of contamination occurred in the Agrio counter-reservoir due to runoff from the mine.
ANDthenWhat are the forecasts? The current problem is not only the amount of water that falls, but where it falls. As meteorology experts explain“it rains in the wet.” The month of January already broke historical records with accumulations of 1,300 liters in some areas, leaving the soil, composed mainly of clay, completely saturated. The infiltration rate is zero; The ground no longer supports even one more drop.
This takes us to a limit hydrological situation. The reservoirs of the province of Huelva are at 85.83% of its capacity, a figure much higher than the average of recent years. This has forced the Board to carry out preventive and controlled discharges in seven of the eight dams it manages to guarantee their safety. However, the greatest physical danger in mining ponds is technical, that is, the risk of sludge liquefaction. The experts warn that An episode of extreme rain increases the hydrostatic pressure on the retaining walls. If this occurs, the mud can lose its solid behavior and suddenly collapse the structure.
There is one more threat. Beyond the mines, the Huelva orography hides another critical point: the phosphogypsum ponds in the Tinto marshes. There are 1,200 hectares that accumulate 120 million tons of industrial waste just a few kilometers from the capital. Studies add a factor of instability additional, since a “progressive sinking of the land” has been detected in this area.
Added to this scenario is the opacity denounced by social groups. Ecologists in Action claims to have requested repeatedly provided information on surveillance reports on the raised walls in Riotinto and on the company’s financial guarantees to cover possible damages, without having received a response from the mining authority to date.
The invisible lesson. While the images of blocked roads and overflowing rivers in the mountains of Cádiz occupy the front pages, the real battle for the environmental safety of Andalusia is being fought in silence and with heavy machinery in the mining areas. The lesson left by DANA in Valencia is clear: the danger is not always only where it rains hardest, but also where the infrastructure cannot withstand the onslaught. As the meteorological analyzes summarizea red notice not only affects the place where it is declared; The water flows, and in this case, what is worrying is not only the water, but what it can drag with it.
Image | Atalaya Mining Rio Tinto and EMA
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