Madrid/Valencia, Nov 6 (EFE).- Spanish emergency services intensified their search for missing persons in the early hours of Wednesday following deadly floods that killed more than 200 people, with the rescue work to be reinforced by modern technologies.
Seventeen space agencies and seven commercial data distributors will provide additional observations and analysis of the affected areas, and the research vessel Ramón Margalef, from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (CSIC-IEO), will be incorporated into the work.
The provisional death toll from the devastating floods is 211 in the province of Valencia, plus five in Castilla-La Mancha – four in Letur (Albacete) and one in Mira (Cuenca) – and one in Andalusia.
The number of officially registered missing persons in Valencia is 89, although various agencies and organizations have observed that there may be cases where disappearances have not yet been reported, and also people who have died but have not yet been identified.
The Civil Guard has also opened a new office for missing persons in the Valencian town of Albal.Emergency services were continuing Wednesday with the search for possible victims, especially in the area of the Magro River, the Rambla del Poyo, the mouth of the Turia River and L’Albufera, and are continuing to remove debris, belongings and vehicles, pumping out water, checking building structure, riverbeds, roads and railways, and restoring supplies such as electricity and gas.
In Letur, the search operation for two people resumed and work intensified in the area where two of the bodies were found on Tuesday.
The Civil Guard arrested another 11 people who had committed or were going to commit robberies in the last two nights in industrial estates in L’Alcudia, Picanya and Catarroja, Valencian towns affected by the storm.
There are now 107 people arrested by the agency for acts of looting, according the General Directorate of the Civil Guard. Including National Police arrests, the total number rises to 186, according to the latest data provided on Tuesday by the directors general of both bodies.
The aid plan
The Official State Gazette (BOE) published the royal decree-law with the first package of measures worth 10.6 billion euros to help affected individuals, self-employed workers and companies, and includes urgent aid for those affected in 78 municipalities in the autonomous communities of Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia.
The measures are part of the so-called ‘Immediate response plan for the reconstruction and relaunching of the Valencian Community,’ which has three phases: a first phase of immediate and urgent response to the catastrophe approved Wednesday, a second phase of reconstruction of the affected areas, and a third phase of relaunching the region.
Solidarity initiatives were still overwhelmed throughout the country, and some organizations, such as the Federation of Food Banks, were urging priority to financial donations to avoid the collapse of logistics centers.
The rains have not yet completely stopped, and four communities (Valencia, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Aragon) are currently on “yellow” alert due to rainfall that could accumulate in some places up to 30 liters per square meter in one hour, according to the State meteorological agency (Aemet). EFE
del-rc-mgv/tw