Torrevieja’s Parks and Gardens department has ordered a comprehensive inspection of every palm in the median of the CV-905 after a red palm weevil–affected specimen collapsed onto a car last Friday, killing twenty-two-year-old Martín Pérez Aniorte, a local resident. The incident occurred on the town’s main entry road, which carries more than thirty thousand vehicles daily. The contractor says it is conducting individual checks on each palm in the median, with a maximum forty-eight hour deadline.

The inspection uses a double-check system: two experienced workers examine the same palm independently, assessing trunk and crown and using mechanical tests to detect hollows. There are between forty and fifty palms in the stretch. Early findings show the collapsed palm had a hollow about three metres up, and larvae and adults were found inside the trunk while the crown remained intact.

Municipal data show the town has five thousand five hundred twenty-six palms, the majority Phoenix washingtonia robusta (three thousand eight hundred thirty-three). There are hundreds of Phoenix dactylifera, some Phoenix canariensis, and a few Washingtonia filifera. The red palm weevil has ravaged palms since it was detected in Vega Baja in 2008; the contractor now identifies only two palms under monitoring in Torrevieja.

The fifteen-year contract with Actúa (Grupo Hozono) is valued at about €113 million and requires two annual visual inspections of all palms, plus checks when any gardening work is done on the median. Pruning began at the end of September and most work is complete; the median was due to be pruned this week. The tragedy has sparked online criticism of municipal maintenance, while Pérez Aniorte is remembered as a member of the Cofradía de Nuestro Padre Jesús de La Caída de la Semana Santa and as a pupil of the Municipal Football School.