In October the 12th, 1907, the city of Manresa suffered the most catastrophic flood in its history. The water of Cardener river rose even 10 meters above its level and carried away factories, bridges, and trains. The heavy rainfalls on the west of the basin of Cardener, from Manresa to Pinós, caused the flood. Still, the rain continued in following days causing new floods, the most noticeable one in 22.10.1907, and affecting the same places. The estimated period of recurrency for this huge river flood is 500 years.
The devastation of the banks extended from Súria to Sant Vicenç de Castellet. In Manresa, the Manresa-Riu rail station on the railway to Berga that was located on the left bank of the river Cardener, and the railway bridge that connected it to the station of North -the current Renfe train station on the right bank- were fully destroyed. Textile factories and workshops many of which no longer resumed activity, orchards that disappeared swallowed by the fury of the water, walls and slopes were seriously damaged as well.
The king Alfonso XIII with the Prime Minister Antonio Maura, the Bishop Torres i Bages and a long retinue of authorities and dignitaries visited Manresa on that occasion, where they were received by the local authorities headed by Mayor Pere Armengou.
The 1st picture was taken several days after the river flood. It displays the level that water achieved on the wall of the factory Les Roques, in Sant Pau quarter. Nowadays this factory does not exist anymore.
The 2nd and 3rd pictures display the identical commemorative plaques that are stuck on the walls respectively of Pont Vell (= the Old Bridge) and the chapel of Sant Marc, in the lowest tip of Via de Sant Ignasi near Pont Vell, recording the level of the water in the flood on 12.10.1907. The chapel of Sant Marc is 75 meters away from the river Cardener bank and the level that its plaque displays 10.6 meters above the riverbed.
In 1907, the river Cardener was not regulated by the reservoirs of Llosa del Cavall and Sant Ponç as nowadays.
[photos Miquel Casajoana, yielded by Col·lectiu de Recerca Històrica de Sant Fruitós de Bages (1st) and Jordi Badia (2nd, 3rd and 4th)]