Simon Wade
GUARDAMAR will pay tribute to the people that prevented a movement of sand that could have engulfed the town, over a century ago.
Saturday January 18 will see the grand opening of the Mira I Botella Museum, in the town itself.
A plaque will display 400 names of the men and women who planted and maintained the 600,000 trees that saved Guardamar from advancing sand dunes, in the late 1800s.
Pilar Gay, Councilor for Historical Heritage, said, the struggle to control the advance of the sands was, “a titanic fight.”
The scheme’s architect, Mira I Botella (1862-1944) will be honoured and remembered at the museum, which will also exhibit mementos, plans and photographs from the project.
After catastrophic earthquakes in 1829, Guardamar went through decades or rebuilding but the westward march of the beach’s sand dunes threatened to bury the town altogether.
The house-museum, originally built in 1906 and restored last year at a cost of nearly €300,000, has four different interior rooms and two courtyards that display the whole forestation process.
