The death of twenty-two-year-old Martín Pérez Aniorte has caused widespread shock in Torrevieje. He had recently lost both his father and mother to illness, and since then had been living with his younger sister at his uncle’s home. Martín was an active participant, as his father had been, in one of Torrevieja’s oldest Holy Week fraternities, the Cofradía de Nuestro Padre Jesús de La Caída. Like many local youths, he participated as a costalero in the processions. He completed his infant and primary education at Cuba Public School and stood out at the Municipal Football School. The municipal authorities have made themselves fully available to his family.

On Friday of the past week, around five ten in the afternoon, tragedy occurred on the CV-905 between the Carrefour roundabout and La Hoya, near the ITV. A palm tree trunk fell onto the car he was driving, killing him at the scene. The trunk was found to be internally affected by the red palm weevil, although there were no exterior signs of infestation.

Torrevieja’s mayor, Eduardo Dolón, has expressed consternation at the sequence of coincidences that led to the accident and has called for action. He has noted that the engineer supervising the contractor, and Actúa (Grupo Hozono), together with Councillor Concha Sala, will put on the table the need to inspect as soon as possible all palms in the town’s inventory, which numbers five thousand five hundred and twenty-six trees.

On social media, alongside hundreds of condolences, criticisms of the council’s handling of the palms have followed, with some lamenting that the mayor did not reference the death at Saturday’s Coronation Gala for the Reina de la Sal. The tragedy has again highlighted concerns about the maintenance of the town’s palm trees.