A large tree has fallen in the centre of Orihuela. The tree fell on Friday night in the middle of the Avenida Duque de Tamames. The trunk, several metres long, completely cut off the street.
A team from the Provincial Fire Brigade Consortium was dispatched to the site. Equipped with chainsaws, they cut the tree into several smaller pieces to facilitate its transport and removal.
Fortunately, there was no one walking in the area at the time. This was greatly helped by the fact that the tree fell at night. Normally, the location where the tree was located is one of the busiest in the Orihuela and a frequent stopping place for many cars and buses. If the tree had fallen on a person, the consequences would surely have been fatal.
In environmental terms, the fall of this tree represents another great loss for the Glorieta de Orihuela. This specific tree has had six other siblings, all planted in a line parallel to Duque de Tamames. This would be the second to be lost, with the first one also suddenly collapsing in similar circumstances in 2015. On that occasion it happened in the middle of the afternoon, at around 4:00 p.m., and it also fell to the ground, torn from its roots.
The last major loss of trees in the Glorieta was last February. The City Council cut down two Australian pines, also known as casuarinas. The municipal services estimated that they presented a serious risk of also ending up on the ground. According to the Councillor for Infrastructure, Víctor Valverde, although the trunks looked healthy, the reality was that there were a large number of trees that grow parasitically on other dead trees where trunk rot and cracks were detected.
