The Diplomat
The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) sent this Wednesday to Valencia the Water Treatment Module of the START team, AquaSTART, to respond to the emergency caused by the DANA.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the director of the AECID, Antón Leis, offered on November 1 to the general director of Civil Protection and Emergencies, Virginia Barcones, and the National Emergency Center (CENEM) materials such as water treatment plants, latrine plates, toilets, tool kits and kitchen and hygiene.
Subsequently, through the CENEM and the website for aid for the DANA of the Generalitat of the Valencian Community, the AECID made the Water Purification Module of the START team (Spanish Technical Aid Response Team or “Red Vests”), called AquaSTART, available for the emergency response.
The AquaSTART is part of the teams or modules that make up the ECPP (European Civil Protection Pool) of the European Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM). This is the third capacity that the AECID makes available to the mechanism together with the health teams, EMT1 and EMT2.
Through the Agreement of the Council of Ministers of November 7, which declares the affected territory “Zone seriously affected by a civil protection emergency”, the Government approved authorizing the AECID to make available, for the first time within the national territory, the supplies of emergency material and humanitarian aid existing in its warehouses. Following this offer, the Valencian authorities requested the deployment of the water purification module, AquaSTART.
Using five treated water production lines, the AquaSTART plants are capable of purifying up to a maximum of 225,000 litres of water with a storage capacity of 112,500 litres.
Each line has a water purification plant with a production capacity of up to three cubic metres of water per hour and has flexible plastic tanks for storage. This system is completed by the pumping pumps, water collection pumps, hoses and tubes necessary for the distribution of water by means of distribution ramps or tanker trucks.
