town

The map of Spain where you can see how healthy the tap water in your town is

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Water management in the Spanish state has several fronts: from the purely hydrological to the increasingly frequent shortage scenarios to the quality of this. Yes, the water that reaches the tap has passed through a water treatment plant and is therefore suitable for consumption, but there is a pollutant to keep an eye on: nitrates. The filtration of nutrients from the industrial agricultural activity so widespread in Spain brings about the degradation of ecosystems and also jeopardizes the security of public supply by saturating the self-cleaning capacity of aquifers and exceeding, in many cases, the treatment capacity of local water treatment plants. Although checking the quality of the water that reaches your tap is a resource accessible to citizens through platforms such as the National Consumer Water Information System (SINAC), the reality is that sometimes databases are too technical and dense, so someone has thought of converting the information from the Ministry of Health into an interactive map that is understandable to everyone. Is “the water of your town“and is a public consultation tool so that anyone who wants to know the quality of tap water of your municipality regarding nitrates, you can do so without needing technical knowledge through an interactive map that is easy to interpret. The map in question has been developed by DATADISTA based on official data from SINAC, which depends on the Ministry of Health and collects the analytical results of all drinking water supply networks in Spain. It is important to highlight that the last reading dates from April 2026 and does not contain real-time measurements, but rather the frequency varies depending on the supply area. Thus, while those networks that distribute more than 10 cubic meters per day have to report, those that are smaller the report is voluntary. Hence, some small rural towns appear without data. To make it easier, it comes with a direct search engine. Datadista The map shows the Spanish state with an OpenStreetMap map and points distributed throughout the territory on a color scale that goes from red for those who do not comply with the regulations to green for those who comply, passing through intermediate tones for risk or surveillance situations. In addition to being able to zoom and move the map or the Canary Islands having its own button to center the image on its archipelago, in the upper area are the layers that we can activate to view information such as the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones declared by the autonomous communities or the chemical state of the underground aquifers. In the lower left corner, the legend that explains the limits. If you prefer not to search on the map, at the top of the website there is a search box that speeds up everything and a brief summary of those critical areas. How good (or not) is the water in your town? Municipalities that fail to comply, critical points and control points. Datadista At first glance, a clear correlation is obtained: the most affected areas are concentrated in areas of intensive irrigated agriculture, especially in the interior of the peninsula. If you also activate the aquifer layer, transparent white and in the bottle: there is one direct relationship between agricultural intensity and water pollution underground with which the population is supplied. The categories in which the municipalities are classified are four: It fails to comply when any network registers 50 mg/L or more of nitrates, which is the parametric value set by European regulations and the Royal Decree 3/2023. Critical point: nitrates consistently exceed 30 mg/L. It is 60% of the legal limit and obliges the operator to develop a Water Health Plan with corrective measures. Control point, for those municipalities where high episodes have been detected but on a punctual and non-sustained basis. Complies, for municipalities that do not present a relevant risk due to nitrates. Be careful because there are 201 municipalities and almost 91,000 people supplied within that “non-compliant” range and 885 municipalities and more than a million people who drink tap water in critical areas. It is important to consider that the final state of a municipality is always determined by the worst state of all its supply networks. The nitrate problem. Nitrates reach the water due to the excess of nitrogen fertilizers and livestock manure, which, applied to the field (whether directly or not), are oxidized by bacterial action, transforming into nitrate, a very soluble anion that the soil does not retain and that easily infiltrates into the aquifers and rivers from which the population is supplied. The 50 mg/L limit was set by the WHO between the decades of the 50s and 60s to prevent acquired methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome) in infants due to high levels of nitrates in well water, the use of uncontrolled groundwater for infant formulas is not recommended. But science has shown that the problem is more serious than that legal limit. Without going any further, a Danish study from 2018 showed that there is a greater risk of colorectal cancer from just 3.87 mg/L, the MCC-Spain project found links to aggressive prostate tumors even below that current limit. In fact, in 2025 an international group of science professionals recommended lower this safety threshold to 6 mg/L, a figure that is very far from what comes out of the taps of numerous municipalities in the state. In Xataka | Much more than tourism, cars and oil: the entire industry that Spain exports to the world, gathered in one graph In Xataka | Someone has created a simulator where you can see if sea level rise is going to reach your house or not. Cover | Infowater

In the middle of 2026, a childhood without mobile phones sounds impossible. A town in Ireland is doing it

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Greystones is a small town on the coast of Ireland, more specifically in County Wicklow. 22,000 inhabitants, semi-detached houses, coastal landscapes, a railway network which allows you to reach Dublin in just over half an hour… A priori, it is the perfect town to enjoy a peaceful life just a stone’s throw from the bustling Irish capital, where companies such as Google or Apple. However, in recent years the town has been in the news for another, very different reason: his crusade against the use of smartphones among the children. His case shows that it is still possible to live a cell phone-free childhood. What has happened? That the small town of Greystones (Ireland) has strived to teach the world a lesson: to show that in 2026 it is possible to keep children away from mobile phones, Instagram, TikTok and the rest of social networks. We just need to join forces to change the sign of social pressure. The initiative is actually not new. Greystones launched their crusade in 2023when it already aroused the curiosity of the rest of the world. However, the unknown remained as to how the experience would turn out. Now we already know. Where does the idea come from? The debate around what age Children should start using mobile phones or social networks and the influence that these have on them is not new. It’s not a concern unique to Greystones, either. There however it happened something interesting during the pandemic. When students returned to classrooms after lockdown, Rachael Harper, headteacher at St Patrick’s School, found that some children were having trouble sleeping or struggling to concentrate. She wasn’t the only one to notice. Other colleagues confirmed that they perceived similar attitudes among their primary school students. What caused them? It didn’t take long for teachers to focus on the use of cell phones. They even encountered children who controlled their calories with apps. Eoghan Cleary, a teacher at another Greystones school, also found that his students admitted seeing violent content on the Internet. The sum of all these factors led several primary schools to send a survey to around 800 parents When asked about the topic: more than half acknowledged that they noticed their children were anxious. In some cases they had even sought professional help. It was enough for the city to decide to make a move. What exactly did he do? We mentioned it before: join forces. Eight primary schools in the Greystones and Delgany area came together to launch an initiative they named ‘It Takes a Village’ (‘It takes a whole village’). Its main tool was the ‘voluntary code without smartphones’, a community pact that basically encourages residents to prohibit children from using mobile phones during their primary education period. In practice this is equivalent to keeping young people away from networks and smartphones until they turn 12 and enter secondary school. The pact is of course voluntary, free and failing to comply with it does not result in fines, but the idea is that whoever signs it applies it both at school and at home. Were you that worried about the issue? It seems so. “As principal of St. Patricks Elementary School I have observed growing concern among parents and teachers,” Harper admitted in 2023 in a column opinion published in Guardian. “The level of anxiety of children in schools has grown steadily, since easy access to online and mobile content has become a threat to childhood. We felt the need to act. The process started with a realization: childhood is becoming increasingly shorter.” Has it worked? That was three years ago. Now we finally know how the initiative is working. Recently The New York Times dedicated an extensive report in which, among other issues, it confirms that the campaign has had a more than reasonable reception. They have supported her 70% of parents and above all it has penetrated the town, moving to businesses and politicians. He has even made his mark beyond Wicklow. Shortly after it was launched ‘Smartphone Free Chilhood’a citizen movement that advocates delaying children’s access to smartphones at least up to 14 years. How has he achieved it? In 2023, Harper herself insisted in that, if it really wanted to work, the initiative had to go beyond the classrooms. “It’s not about enforcing a code. It’s about building a strong network of services that helps children, families and teachers deal with anxiety-related challenges.” The report of The New York Times suggests that goal is also being achieved at Greystones. Beyond what parents do at home, the campaign is completed with training workshops and events such as phone-free beach parties. Even with the commitment of local businesses. For example, one store has offered to help children who need to locate their parents. Is it so important? Yes. And for a simple reason. The very name of the initiative (‘It takes a whole village’) makes it clear that, to succeed, the campaign must play with collective pressure. And it seems that he is achieving it. “In networks everything is collective. Addressing it jointly is the best option,” recognize Jennifer Whitmore, member of the Irish parliament and mother in Greystones. In other words: delaying a child’s access to mobile phones and social platforms is very easy when they are surrounded by other kids of the same age who also do not use them. “What Greystones demonstrates is that parents and communities are not powerless,” agree Clearly. Is it that dangerous? Harper insist in that the initiative is not based on “anti-technology stances” nor does it want to deny children the use of smartphones. The key lies rather in rethinking the times and what it means to have a mobile phone. “Our goal is to ensure that they are adequately prepared and emotionally capable to take on the responsibility that comes with having a smartphone when accessing secondary education”, claims before citing a UNESCO report that suggests it can take up to 20 minutes for a child to concentrate … Read more

A brotherhood in Sagunto has closed its doors to women during Holy Week. The decision threatens to cost the entire town

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What weighs more, tradition or equality? It seems like a whimsical question, but it’s exactly the same as yesterday they had to consider hundreds of brothers from Sagunto. There the members of Sang de Sagunt have had to make a controversial decision with Holy Week around the corner: Keep the doors of their brotherhood closed to women, preserving the status quo with which they have functioned in recent centuries, or accept the requests increasingly pressing of the women who want to procession just like the men of the town? For them there are few doubts. What has happened? That nothing will change in Sagunto. At least for now. Yesterday the brotherhood of the Sang de Sagunt decided by an overwhelming majority that it will remain faithful to tradition and keep its door closed to women. The members of the brotherhood with the right to vote were called to a conclave in which they had to decide a crucial question: whether or not to alter the statutes so that where it now says “male” it now includes “any baptized person”, a small change that would nevertheless allow women to participate in the work of the entity. The brothers voted for do not touch a single comma. What was the result? The vote was held behind closed doors, but its results were not long in coming. To begin with, we know that of the 1,627 brotherOnly 403 voted, all men, of course. Regarding the result, the ‘no’ to the change won resoundingly. 267 people spoke out against altering the statutes compared to 114 who supported it. Another eight brothers abstained, 12 voted blank and two issued invalid ballots. The result throws a bucket of cold water (the umpteenth) on the claims of the dozens of women of the Semana Santa Inclusiva Sagunto collective who were waiting gathered at the doors of the temple where the summit was held. Why is it important? Beyond the vote and what it means for the brotherhood, the result is important for several reasons. To begin with, it shows that, despite the attempts at Inclusive Holy Week, the message of equality is far from reaching the brotherhood. It’s not just that the ‘no’ won overwhelmingly, it’s that it’s the third time that the brotherhood has spoken out in that sense. A similar vote was held in 1999 in which only nine brothers They spoke out in favor of the inclusion of women. In 2022 the experience was repeated with the same result, although the ‘yeses’ shot up to 135, leaving at least a positive reading for women. Yesterday the vote did not even leave that little consolation. Support plummeted to only 114. Are there more reasons? Yes. Yesterday’s vote is also relevant for what it may represent for Holy Week in Sagunto. In February elDiario revealed that the Ministry of Tourism had initiated an investigation file to decide whether or not to remove the label Festival of National Tourist Interest (FITN). The reason: precisely the lack of gender equality in the brotherhood that has been in charge of the central events of Holy Week for centuries. The loss of the title would be a lot more than a simple administrative formality. The FITN label clears the way to benefit from promotion channels and subsidies, so if Sagunto loses that label it could be affected at a tourism level. The Government already has advanced which, after yesterday’s vote, has decided to initiate a file to “revoke” the 2004 declaration. Why did they vote against? In the background there is a key debate: Maintain the current status to preserve tradition or adapt it to the values ​​of the 21st century for greater equality? As the reporters who were waiting yesterday for the result of the vote at the doors of the temple explained, arguments in favor of both positions could be heard in the streets of Sagunto. At the summit, however, the first one won with arguments like “tradition is tradition” or that women can set up their “own brotherhood.” “We are sad, above all disappointed,” admits to The Newspaper Blanca Ribelles, from Holy Week Inclusive. “I thought that our society would have evolved and that we would be more mature than three years ago, because equality is something that is no longer questioned. It is not about being more, but about equality.” After collecting signatures to encourage voting, Ribelles recognizes that now the next move may be to go directly to court, although assures which is a path “that we would never have wanted to reach”. Is it a unique case? Not quite. What the group demands is that women not have to limit themselves to mending their clothes, cleaning the hermitage or raising funds. They want to go out in procession in “the usual brotherhood, the one they have always had.” It is not the only place in Spain where the debate has arisen. A year ago the Constitutional gave the reason to a woman from La Laguna (Tenerife) who reported a similar situation. The case has been resorted at the European level, however, which explains why yesterday it was not decisive in the Sagunto vote. Images | Sagunto Tourism and Valencian Community In Xataka | Holy Week has been a huge marketing campaign for decades. Now it even has board games

This town in Spain went unnoticed until 1953. Then it decided to carry out the largest tourism experiment in the world

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In the middle of the 20th century the skyscrapers They were still a rarity outside of cities like New York or Chicago. In Europe they predominated the horizontal citieswith low-rise buildings and compact historic centers. However, in the middle of the 1950s, experimentation began with an urban idea that seemed almost futuristic for the time: concentrating thousands of homes and hotels in high towers to free up land, bring people closer to the sea and create cities capable of accommodating crowds without expanding uncontrollably throughout the territory. The town facing the sea. At that time Benidorm it was just a fishing village of the Alicante coast. Its economy revolved around the sea and, in particular, the tuna trap, while many families survived by combining fishing, agriculture and work in the merchant navy. That small town barely had more than a few thousand inhabitants and had the typical appearance of a mediterranean town: low houses, narrow streets and a life marked by the rhythm of the tides. However, the fishing crisis, the economic isolation of post-war Spain and the need to find new sources of income pushed the town to seek a different future. It was then that an almost unthinkable transformation began to take place: a humble enclave destined to become one of the most unique urban and tourist experiments in history. The vision that changed the destiny of the city. The great turning point came in the 1950s when Mayor Pedro Zaragoza perceived the potential tourist of that corner of the Costa Blanca. At a time when the Franco regime was trying to attract foreign currency and timidly open the country to the outside world, Benidorm opted for sun and beach tourism as an economic engine. The decision involved breaking with many conventions of the time, from allowing the use of bikini on the beaches (a scandal for conservative Spain) to designing an urban model specifically designed to accommodate thousands of foreign visitors. The municipality developed in 1956 one of the first general urban planning plans in the country, a tool more typical of large cities than a small coastal town. With that plan the metamorphosis began: the place that had lived off fishing for centuries began to be imagined as an international tourist city. Benidorm before the “plan” Grow towards the sky. The key to the urban model was an unusual decision on the Mediterranean coast: grow vertically. The 1963 planning practically eliminated height limits and allowed increasingly slender towers to be built on relatively small plots. The logic was simple and powerful. If the buildings rose towards the sky, the ground could be kept free for green areas, swimming pools, avenues and services. This approach turned Benidorm into a true laboratory of modern urban planning, indirectly inspired by the theories of architects. like Le Corbusier about vertical cities surrounded by open spaces. He first great symbol of that change came with buildings like the Frontalmar or the Coblanca 1 in the sixties, towers (or moles) that they broke completely the traditional scale of the town. Those constructions inaugurated a model that in a few decades would transform the city’s landscape. The hordes are coming. The airport opening of Alicante in 1967 and the expansion of European tour operators triggered the arrival of visitors. British tourism, especially, found Benidorm a cheap, sunny and accessible destination all year round. To accommodate this avalanche of tourists, dozens of increasingly taller hotels and apartment blocks were built. In a few decades, Benidorm’s skyline went from low houses to a forest of towers facing the sea. Today the city has more than a hundred of skyscrapers or, in other words, it is the second in the world with the highest density of tall buildings per inhabitant, only behind New York. Structures such as the Gran Hotel Bali, the Time or the future TM Tower (which will exceed 230 meters) symbolize that vertical race that turned the city into what many call the “Manhattan of the Mediterranean.” Criticized and admired. There is no doubt, the Benidorm model has been the subject of debate for decades. For some it is the perfect example of mass tourism and aggressive urbanization of the coastline. For others it is, paradoxically, one of the coastal developments more efficient of Europe. The concentration of high-rise buildings allows hundreds of thousands of visitors to be accommodated while occupying a relatively small area and reduces land consumption compared to extensive urbanization models with dispersed chalets and resorts. In addition, the city functions as a practically continuous destination throughout the year, with very high hotel occupancy levels even in winter. This spatial efficiency has led some architects and urban planners to consider Benidorm as an urban experiment so unique that, far from being a mistake, anticipated solutions that are discussed today in the debate on sustainability and urban density. From a town to a world tourist icon. The result of this entire process is a transformation that is difficult to imagine if you look at the starting point. In just a few decades Benidorm went from being a small fishing center to a city capable of receiving millions of visitors a year. Its stable population is around tens of thousands of inhabitants, but during the summer can multiply until approaching half a million people. He skyline of skyscrapersvisible from kilometers out to sea, has become an iconic image of Spanish tourism. What began as a risky bet in the 1950s ended up creating a urban and economic phenomenon unique: a place where an ancient Mediterranean town decided to reinvent itself looking up to the sky and ended up building his own Manhattan facing the sea. Perhaps that is why its story continues to provoke the same uncomfortable question: whether that was a brilliant urban planning intuition… or the experiment that forever changed the way of inhabiting the Mediterranean. Image | Javier Martin Espartosa, Double reed In Xataka | If the question is whether a skyscraper can be erased without demolishing it, … Read more

the invisible leak that locked a town in an industrial dystopia

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This afternoon, the Basque authorities restrictions have been lifted in Muskizbut the fear still remains. Living in the shadow of the largest refinery in the Basque Country, Petronor, has turned this Biscayan municipality into a scene straight out of England at the end of the 19th century. Its streets have been empty, schools with minimal activity and neighbors equipped with masks. The mist that covered the town on Thursday and part of Friday was not fog, but a toxic cloud. The invisible escape. It all started on Thursday morning due to a technical incident in a gasoline tank at the petrochemical plant, which caused the evaporation and emission into the atmosphere of the volatile fraction of the fuel. According to the Muskiz city councilbetween 10:15 and 11:00 a.m., stations such as the one in the San Julián neighborhood recorded peaks of between 100 and 200 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³) of benzene. To put the figure in perspective, the regulatory limit value for the annual average is just 5 µg/m³, meaning that emissions far exceeded the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). In addition, the chemist Néstor Etxebarria (UPV/EHU) warned that not only benzene escapedbut also toluene and xylene, completing the dangerous chemical cocktail known as BTEX, very volatile and toxic substances. The real danger of hydrocarbons. To understand the severity of the leak, it is necessary to explain what benzene is. Simply put, it is a colorless, volatile liquid with a sweet smell. that penetrates very easily into the bloodstream through the lungs. In the short term, acute inhalation causes poisoning similar to that of solvents: drowsiness, dizziness, headaches, tremors and, in severe levels, loss of consciousness. However, the real danger lies in its long-term effects. International health and environmental agencies (IARC, ATSDR, EPA) classify benzene as a confirmed human carcinogen (Group 1). This substance directly attacks the bone marrow, depressing the formation of blood cells, which can trigger aplastic anemia and acute myeloid leukemia. The WHO itself assumes in its guidelines that, being a genotoxic agent, there is no exposure threshold that the human body can safely tolerate. Any dose, no matter how small, increases the risk. Communication chaos, dizziness and fear. Despite the obvious chemical danger, the management of the crisis has outraged those affected. Although the escape occurred on Thursday morning, The Mail denounced that the Basque Government It did not issue preventive confinement recommendations until 8:17 p.m., ten hours after the incident. The usual Petronor emergency sirens, which sound every Thursday as a drill, remained silent yesterday, and neither mass alert was sent (ES-Alert) to cell phones because Public Health considered that “it was not an emergency.” While the Local Police patrolled with megaphones asking residents to lock themselves in, the director of Public Health, Guillermo Herrero, minimized the crisis in Radio Euskadiensuring that there was no “risk for the population” and that a “normal life” could be led. This vision contrasted head-on with that of the mayor of Muskiz, Eduardo Briones, who to the microphones Chain Being, He recommended not going out because “it is better to sin by excess.” The human impact was immediate. In statements to The MailItxaso Etxegarai recounted how her asthmatic daughter lost her appetite and suffered severe headaches, while her eyes stung. For his part, retiree José Taboada had to go look for his wife at work because, after inhaling the air, “he had gotten dizzy” and “had lost consciousness a little.” Panic also crossed the walls of the refinery. chow to detail The Jumpdozens of contract workers abandoned their jobs on Friday morning. “No one has told us anything clearly. While we are waiting, we are at the site of toxicity,” an operator reported to the BEsuffering from a sore throat. Unions such as LAB and CCOO demanded the paralysis of the plant. Impunity and legal loopholes. This episode is not an isolated event, but rather the straw that breaks the camel’s back for a population accustomed to living with industrial pollution. In fact, it is the third incident in just two months (in December there was another leak, and this same Sunday an electrical failure caused immense flames and black smoke) As detailed by the chemist and environmental disseminator Julen Rekondo in COPE chainthe problem lies in a flagrant legal vacuum: Spanish regulations sanction companies if they exceed the annual average of benzene, but does not contemplate punitive limits for sharp point peaks. This allows serious episodes not to count as an infraction. Neighborhood fatigue. Petronor’s shadow is long. The refinery is responsible of more than 10% of greenhouse gas emissions and Public Health data show that the Muskiz area registers mortality rates from lung cancer between 11% and 45% higher than the Basque average. Added to this is citizen distrust due to “revolving doors.” The residents gathered this week remembered that former senior officials of the Basque Government, such as Josu Jon Imaz or Iñaki Zudaire, ended up occupying positions of maximum power in Petronor and Repsol, which raises doubts about the rigor of institutional control. To channel this satiety, the neighborhood platform “Las Karreras Variant Stop“has called a protest demonstration for this Sunday, March 1, at 12:00 p.m., demanding real solutions. The air clears, but the indignation remains. The sirens never sounded, but the silence in Muskiz has been deafening. Although at two in the afternoon on Friday, February 27, the authorities lifted the preventive confinement when benzene stabilized at 2 µg/m³, normality here is a fragile concept. The gas will dissipate with the wind currents, but the uncertainty of living in a chemical Russian roulette remains entrenched in the lungs of a people who demand to stop being the collateral damage of industrial progress. Image | Zarateman and Gustavo Fring Xataka | The United Kingdom has found lithium under its feet, but extracting it is going to be a billion-dollar logistical nightmare

In the 70s Álava left an entire town under its airport. What I didn’t know was that it was hiding a treasure of 5,000 medieval coins.

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He Vitoria airport It may not be the largest, the best connected or the busiest in the country, but it stands out for the volume of merchandise it moves. Last month it exceeded 5,400 tonswhich consolidates it as Aena’s fourth busiest aerodrome, only behind Barajas, El Prat and Zaragoza. If the Alava terminal works, moving cargo, planes and hundreds of thousands of passengers, it is thanks to an old village that ended up buried in the 70s: Otaza. The most curious thing is that he did it with a hidden medieval treasure. The price of growing. In the 1970s, Álava businessmen found themselves with a dilemma. If they wanted to continue growing, they needed better connections, regular flights that would allow them to reach the rest of the metropolises in Spain and Europe. They had the Salburua airfieldinaugurated in 1935, but it did not seem like the best solution, so the technicians had to look for alternatives. And they found her. After evaluating several locations in the region, such as Ullibarri Arrazua. Salvatierra or Zurbano concluded that the best solution was to set up a new aircraft facility on the land of the town of Foronda. A work in record time. The project had the support of the Provincial Council and moved forward with astonishing speed. At least for the deadlines that infrastructures the size of an airport usually handle today. The construction of the aerodrome was approved in 1972 and in 1976 Civil Aviation gave its OK to the first phase. The works, remember The Mailinvolved the construction of a 2,200 x 45 m flight runway, in addition to the operating systems. The work (and procedures) continued to advance at a good pace during the following years. In 1978, the institutional machinery was launched to contract the control tower, accesses and urbanization and just two years later (the January 30, 1980) the ministry officially opened Vitoria Airport to national and international passenger traffic. In April of that same year Iberia inaugurated one of its most important lines, the one that exalts it with Madrid. Sew and sing, right? Not at all. The construction of the terminal encountered a problem: the proximity of a small village that ended up being located 370 meters from the runway. His name: Otaza. The population had a long history and it even had its own church, but it was not what is said to be very populous. It is estimated that at the beginning of the 19th century it hosted only about thirty of people, more or less what there were in 1974, when according to The Mail 26 neighbors lived there. The Álava authorities were therefore faced with a dilemma: What should take priority, the new airfield or a village with a handful of families? And the pickaxe arrived. The expropriation was not what is called simple. Not all the neighbors willingly agreed to leave their homes and in fact there were a few ‘numantinos’ (not many, it is true) who did not leave until the end. Their efforts did not prevent the bulldozers from taking Otaza away. In October 1979, the regional press reported how, after a break and despite not yet having reached a total agreement with the neighbors, the authorities had resumed the demolition work. The Bishopric had fewer objections, which reached an agreement that allowed the village temple to be demolished. The pickaxe had to work little. A few days later, on November 2, the demolition was completed. A town to remember. That was the end of Otaza. Although in its day the town had welcomed dozens of people, had a church and services, the expropriation of the land and the demolition works sealed its fate. Shortly after completing the works, the authorities agreed the disappearance of the council, which is now part of Astegieta. However, as EITB recalls, it was not the only town affected by the works on the new terminal. Antezana of Foronda He also paid a ‘toll’ for Álava to have its own flights. One last surprise. Otaza’s story could have ended there if it weren’t for the fact that shortly after his ‘death’, in April 1980, a family decided to take a walk through the grounds. During the walk, as they passed near the church of San Emeterio and San Celedonio, they found a jar with coins. The piece caught their attention enough to report it to the authorities, who confirmed that it was a curious treasure: more than 5,000 coins of copper and silver minted during the reigns of Alfonso I of Aragon and Alfonso VIIIbetween the 12th and 13th centuries. Today it is known as “the treasure of Otaza”. Images | WikipediaGoogle Earth and Mikelo (Flickr) In Xataka | Barajas needed to improve its roads but a baroque hermitage made it complicated. Solution: put it in a roundabout

The emptied Spain seemed condemned to depopulation. Until a town in Palencia found a way to avoid it

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until recently Nava walls (Palencia) was a remote town known above all for its heritage and being the birthplace of the poet Jorge Manrique and the painters Peter and Alonso Berruguete. That was until not long ago, we say. In recent days the name of this town in Tierra de Campos has grabbed headlines throughout the country for another reason: against all odds, it has become proof that the ‘Spain emptied’ and the rural peninsula do not have to resign themselves to losing population. In Paredes they have certainly worked a miracle. The most curious thing is that he has done it with a recipe quite obvious. Looking at the INE. Although its tables are basically made up of figures, percentages and rates, from time to time the INE gives us the odd mystery. It happens in Paredes de Nava, Palencia. If we take a look at their census we observe a curious phenomenon: despite the fact that their region (Land of Fields) has spent the last decades losing density of population, in line with much of rural Spain, in recent years Paredes has gained neighbors. In 2023 they were registered in the town 1,985 peoplejust one year later there were 1,911 and in 2025 the observatory already counted 1,927. Is it that curious? Yes. It may not be spectacular growth, but it is striking if two factors are taken into account. First, it breaks the negative trend that Paredes had experienced in recent times, accustomed to losing a few 25 residents every year. Second, the town had not moved in its current population data for quite some time. We have to go back to 2018 to find a better result and the town hopes to reach the psychological barrier of the 2,000 registereda figure that has not been used since 2013. And how is it possible? If the case of Paredes has attracted attention beyond Palencia or Castilla y León, it is because this increase in population is neither coincidental nor the result of chance. On the contrary. Responds to a strategy that already has sparked interest from other towns and relies on two legs: immigration and affordable housing. To understand it, we have to go back to 2024, when the mayor of the town, Luis Calderón, contacted YourTechoa Spanish SOCIMI that seeks solutions to “homelessness and lack of housing.” The entity works in several fields at the same time, but in the rural Their bet basically consists of recovering empty houses to turn them into “accessible” homes for “vulnerable families.” Objective: home… and roots. In practice, this means that they acquire homes and then rent them to the City Council so that they end up being rented to new residents in an initiative with a marked social focus. On walls for example 75% of the beneficiaries are foreigners, especially Latinos. Since the idea is for newcomers to the town to take root, it is easier for them to take root. different shapes. As? Through contracts of leasing for those who need a vehicle or rentals with option to own. And the work? The councilor assures There are no shortage of vacancies in the province. In addition to the Renault factory, livestock and agriculture there are a project to open an olive oil refining factory. “There are plenty of jobs, there are more than 1,200 unfilled, that is without taking into account the social and health needs and those of Renault,” guarantees Calderón, who optimistically awaits the opening of the new oil refining factory: “We are going to need many more houses.” “The solution, in rural areas”. The demographic pulse of the town is not new. It started after the pandemic, when a special office focused on repopulation opened. Years ago he decided to welcome 200 Ukrainian mothers and their children, in 2024 he contacted TuTecho and today he boasts that the town has managed to attract 150 new inhabitants. Of them, a third (49) have arrived thanks to TuTecho, which has in turn acquired 11 homes in the Palencia municipality. Initially the company had acquired only four. “The solution to the country’s main problems, housing and immigration, is in rural areas,” he defended. a few days ago the councilor in statements collected by The Newspaper. The truth is that Paredes’ experience seems to have encouraged other people. Those responsible for TuTecho explain that they have already made the leap to a dozen towns, where they also collaborate with city councils to articulate a residential rental offer that makes possible what for a long time seemed like a pipe dream in emptied Spain: “Restock”. “A bridge between both”. The founder of Tutecho, Blanca Hernández, sums it up clearly: “Depopulation is a challenge, homelessness another. We realized that we can be a bridge between the two,” relates to The Confidential. “It’s about matching the profiles of inhabitants that the town needs with the families that meet those requirements and need a home.” In the case of Paredes, they have even managed to ensure that the school, which until not so long ago seemed on a tightrope, faces the future with some peace of mind. Not bad if you take into account that, as stated in a recent EY report, 48% of the territory Spanish does not reach the European density threshold (12.5 inhabitants per km2) and 80% of small rural municipalities are losing population. Images | Santiago López-Pastor (Flickr) and Wikipedia In Xataka | Empty Spain is now officially one of the quietest places on the planet. There is no risk that it will cease to be

Spain does not know if it has too many or too few rabbits. But this town of Toledo has declared war on them at their own risk and expense.

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In Villa de Don Fadrique, province of Toledo, the town hall you have just activated an extraordinary authorization to shoot down rabbits daily. In fact, it is inviting volunteers to reduce its population to a minimum. It is a total war against these rodents that are becoming a real headache for farmers across the country. And it is curious because, if we look at the data, the truth is that the European rabbit entered the red list of threatened species from the IUCN in 2019. Can you be endangered and an indiscriminate pest at the same time? And the answer is yes, of course yes. A few days ago, it was the Union of Farmers and Ranchers of Castilla la Mancha the one that warned that “the proliferation of rabbits is a problem that has been going on for ten years, they speak of a ‘pest’ that is threatening olive groves and pistachio and almond trees, and they demand that the populations of these animals be controlled.” It is not an anecdotal impression, in a sectoral report points out that rabbits account for 64% of agricultural insurance payments for wildlife damage and averages of tens of thousands of hectares damaged per year are cited. And yet, the decline of the rabbit at a general level it’s clear. And that not only impacts the “bug” itself: whether we like it or not, there is the base of the food chain of more than 30 species (from the Iberian lynx to the imperial eagle) and its disaster alters the functioning of the Mediterranean forest. He’s been altering it for decades. Because what is clear is that this is not something recent. The decline of the European rabbit is associated with myxomatosisfirst (mid-20th century); then continue with the rabbit hemorrhagic disease in the 80s; and is complicated by the arrival in 2012 of a new variant (RHDV2) that affects populations just when they were beginning to recover. To this we must add the changes in the landscape and the disappearance of boundaries, fallow lands and traditional shelters. However, when God closes a door he opens a window. And, despite the general decline, rabbits have known how to use the gaps in human infrastructure to create authentic breeding sites. The slopes and shoulders of the roads have become tremendously favorable habitats (and even in motion vectors) and areas with constant food (irrigation/crops) are natural attractors of these reduced populations. That is to say, the explanation is simple: the populations are smaller, but they have been rearranged in areas that cause more damage to farmers. And thus, the conflict is served. While conservationists and scientists ask to recover the rabbit in the mountains, farmers ask to expel it from its areas of influence. But the curious thing is that both sides are partly right and we do not have stories that allow us to understand what is happening. Something that is also happening with all the bugs on the mountain. Image | Sönke Biehl In Xataka | In 1940 Japan removed this island from the maps to keep its activities secret. Now your creatures are dying

its 1,500 residents forced to leave the town due to the arrival of new rains

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The municipality of Grazalema in Cádiz without a doubt Leonardo is bearing the brunt of the storm As we have seen in numerous images where water can be seen in the streets, in houses or even coming out of power outlets. Given all this, the situation has reached a completely unsustainable point, so the authorities They have ordered the complete evacuation of the municipality. Heavy rainfall. This decision comes after receiving this Wednesday the town almost 600 liters of water per square meter surpassing all previous records. This large amount of rainfall has formed a symbiosis with the many liters that had fallen in the previous days and weeks, which has made the situation completely unsustainable. The problem is precisely what may come in the coming days. The AEMET has already alerted that this same Saturday the Grazalema region will be on orange alert due to rainfall that will once again reach tens of liters. Something that has activated all the machinery to relocate citizens while the weather situation returns to normal. Its magnitude. It is not an easy task, since we are talking about a town with nearly 1,600 residents who will now have to move to another point to guarantee their safety. Just as they collect local mediait was the president of the Andalusian Government himself who has announced this measure in an appearance with the mayor of Grazalema due to the absolutely anomalous situation that the town is experiencing. The main focus of concern is placed above all on the geological state of the municipality, and especially on its aquifer. Earth movements. The main danger that the municipality’s aquifer is full of water is that it begins to exert pressure on the terrain itself. This translates into ground movements with structural damage that would affect homes or the streets themselves. How will it be done? Although this evacuation will take place during the day and with weather conditions that are currently more favorable than those experienced yesterday, moving so many people is not easy. For now, the authorities have indicated that residents who can travel with their own means to Ronda, where they can be welcomed in a pavilion managed by the Red Cross. Although it is also possible that some neighbors move to the homes of relatives or acquaintances. In any case, having time ahead will ensure that this evacuation is done in an orderly manner and in areas such as the president himself points out of the Andalusian Government. Something that they point out must be kept in mind is serenity at this time so that chaos does not spread. It is an obligation. The evacuation of the municipality is not voluntary at all, but is mandatory for all resident neighbors who must leave the municipality following the instructions. In this way, tonight no one will be able to sleep in Grazalema without a clear date to return. Other evictions. Throughout these days we have seen how in different parts of Andalusia evacuations have had to be carried outsuch as in Dúdar (Granada). Although an evacuation of a municipality of considerable size with more than 1,000 inhabitants, the truth is that there are few precedents that we can have in mind right now. Images | Rob In Xataka | MAs water gushes from the ground in Grazalema, Andalusia’s last resort against flooding is already underway: the reservoirs

A town in Burgos has resorted to a desperate idea to get people to stay there: paying them for food

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Cardeñajimeno is a small town from the Alfoz de Burgos region, in Castilla y León, where just under 1,200 residents live. Its city council is not willing to let that figure drop and has decided to tackle the challenge of depopulation by making it as easy as possible for its inhabitants, especially the elderly. As? Cooking for them and bringing food to their doorstep. Whatever it takes to escape from an “emptied Spain” that has been going on for decades. expanding your footprint through the peninsula, with the challenge what that entails. Objective: establish population. Spain may move in record population numbers, with 49.4 million of censuses as of October 1, 2025, but that does not mean that the entire territory is going through its best demographic moment. On the contrary. The ‘record Spain’ also hides a ‘Spain emptied’ that has spent decades spreading its footprint across the peninsula, feeding on municipalities that have been gradually depopulated. I warned him Before the pandemic, the Spanish Rural Development Network (REDR) recalled that in a matter of two decades the number of towns with less than one hundred neighbors had increased by 60%. A similar message The Galician Accounts Council was launched in 2024, remembering that a hundred towns in the region face the risk of becoming ghost towns. How to avoid it? That’s the million dollar question. In an attempt to fix the population and not swell the map of emptied Spain, over the last few years the administrations have racked their brains looking for solutions. Some offer financial aid to attract new residents. There are town councils that they are taking charge of local businesses (gas stations or grocery stores) to prevent their neighbors from being left without basic services. And not long ago we even told you about a remote town in the province of Soria that reached offer house and business in an attempt to attract new blood. Making it easy. In Cardeñajimeno (province of Burgos), they have gone one step further to make it as easy as possible for its inhabitants and prevent the elderly from packing their bags to move to larger towns. As? Taking care of your diet. The news has advanced it Burgos Connectwhich on Saturday revealed that two populations in the region “will pay for food” to their elders to stop the depopulation that is shaking part of the community. “Encourage permanence”. The towns in question are those that make up the municipality of Burgos: Cardeñajimeno and San Medel. A few days ago its Consistory launched a tender to look for professionals interested in providing a “catering service to elderly people” residing in the town. The goal? “Promote the elderly person’s permanence in their usual environment and avoid depopulation.” In other words, provide the necessary means so that no elderly person from Cardeñajimeno or San Medel is forced to move to Burgos or another larger town in search of comforts. But… Is it necessary? The case of Cardeñajimeno is interesting because it shows that rural Spain not only faces the challenge of depopulation, it also deals with aging. Although the situation of the town is far from being critical (the INE counts there 1,185 registeredbelow the 1,205 in 2022, but significantly above those recorded two decades ago), it does not escape the trend of the rest of Spain. 20% of its population is over 60 years old and dozens of octogenarians and nonagenarians reside in the town. “Nutritional well-being”. With the new service, the City Council wants to “provide nutritional and physical well-being to all those elderly who, given their special situation, require it.” To achieve this, it even contemplates that the company prepares “different diets” adapted to users with special needs. For example, diabetics or people who need crushed food. The base tender budget is 16,500 euros for one year, with a maximum price per menu of 9.6 euros, but the specifications also clarify that the final price will depend on the acceptance of the service, its users and how much food they request. On the State contracting platform the budget Estimated is 30,000. In other locations are already offered similar benefits. Image | Wikipedia In Xataka | Empty Spain is now officially one of the quietest places on the planet. There is no risk that it will cease to be

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