If you've had your car stolen one day, never give up hope of finding it. Emi Carrasco can testify to this, after the police told him that they had found his stolen car on August 5, 1997, in Tarragona (Spain), reports the Catalan media Tarragona Digital.
While it is difficult to find positive effects of the drought, it will at least have allowed this French woman living in Spain to find her 1988 Opel Kadett, which disappeared during a family trip to the beach. It was while fetching a pair of flip-flops that her nephew had forgotten in the vehicle that Emi realized he was missing.
It was the first car she had bought with her husband Manolo, just after they got married, and therefore had sentimental value, in addition to the substantial cost that this fashionable car represented at the time. It is indeed the unprecedented drought that is currently affecting Catalonia and which has led to the drying up of the Riudecanyes marsh, that has caused the carcass of the vehicle to reappear, of which the couple had not heard anything in 26 years.
El cotxe que li van robar fa 26 anys, al descobert per la sequera: "Em pensava que era broma"https://t.co/2wQfq15gGk pic.twitter.com/smE6wXTHnl
— 324.cat (@324cat) January 10, 2024
A threat of a fine
On 27 December, the Catalan authorities called Emi to tell her that she had to make the necessary arrangements to remove her car from the swamp or face a fine. Eventually, the Frenchwoman was able to prove that her car had been reported stolen thanks to her complaint filed at the time, removing the threat of a ticket and the obligation to remove the vehicle on her own.
Following this call, she went to the place of discovery with her husband and found the papers of their unusable vehicle, as well as a jacket and the famous flip-flops belonging to their nephew. The police, who will be in charge of removing the wreckage of the vehicle, announced that they had opened an investigation to find those responsible for the theft.
It was a memorable story that will also be remembered by Elena Riego, a journalist working for a local media outlet who went to the scene of the discovery to shoot images of the car stolen 26 years ago. As the area became muddy due to the rains that have hit the area in recent days, the journalist sank almost up to her waist in the mud, forcing firefighters to intervene, standing on a log, to come to her aid and get her out of the trap.