Military reinforcements were deployed on Friday morning in the south-east of Spain to deal with the dramatic situation and total chaos caused by the deadly floods at the start of the week.
Three days after these floods, which left at least 205 dead and dozens missing, according to a new report, poignant calls for help from desperate residents of small villages left to their own devices were multiplying on the radios and televisions.
“We continue to ask for water, to ask for food,” said Amparo Fort, the mayor of Chiva, a town of 16,000 inhabitants located west of Valencia.
“You have to know that there are children, that we have elderly people,” she continued, sobs in her voice, in an interview with national radio RNE.
At the same time, scenes of looting took place, with the government announcing the arrest of 39 people and promising that security forces would show “absolute firmness”.
To deal with this dramatic human situation, 500 additional soldiers were deployed Friday morning in the region.
– “Mountains of cars” –
The sending of these soldiers, announced Thursday evening by the central government, follows an urgent request from the president of the Valencia region, Carlos Mazón, whose government is overwhelmed by this unprecedented crisis
These reinforcements bring to 1,700 the number of soldiers deployed in the Valencia region, by far the most bereaved by the floods, with 202 of the 205 deaths recorded.
These soldiers belong to the Military Emergency Unit (UME), a special unit intervening during natural disasters, but also to the Army and the Navy.
A sign of the authorities’ concern, Defense Minister Margarita Robles assured Friday that the government would send as many reinforcements as necessary and that they would stay as long as necessary.
“We will send 120,000 army men if necessary,” she said in an interview on TVE.
The army’s priority is to reopen the roads to allow the delivery of aid, particularly food, but also to help in the search for missing people, the exact number of which is not known, but is very high. .
For the first time, the central government recognized Thursday that there were “dozens and dozens” of missing people, suggesting a heavier human toll.
An officer from the Civil Guard divers unit (equivalent to the Gendarmerie), Commander Pizarro, declared on public radio that the discovery of bodies was “permanent”.
“There are mountains of cars” piled up in the mud, testified Amparo Fort, the mayor of Chiva. “Many are empty, but for others it is clear that they have occupants.”
Alerted too late to the seriousness of the situation, many people were surprised in their cars.
In Valencia, a morgue was set up in the “City of Justice” to allow the identification of bodies, brought at regular intervals by ambulances from where employees in scrubs take out stretchers covered with a white sheet.
The survivors, who lack everything, must also face increasing insecurity, according to multiple testimonies.
“People were coming in to get pants, they were stealing,” Fernando Lozano, a resident of Aldaia, west of Valencia, who had gone to the city’s shopping center, told AFP on Thursday.
– Solidarity –
The survivors could, however, count on spontaneous demonstrations of solidarity.
On this public holiday, hundreds of people – carrying brooms, shovels, food and even diapers – left Valencia, a city which was not affected by the floods, on foot to go to devastated neighboring towns. , noted AFP journalists.
Some said they were responding to a call from friends, others simply wanted to be helpful.
Although the sun shone on Valencia on Friday, vigilance was still required in certain areas of southern Spain.
The National Meteorological Agency (Aemet) warned that heavy rainfall would still occur this weekend, and decreed a “red alert” (maximum risk level) in the province of Huelva, in Andalusia (southwest). of the country, bordering Portugal).
For their part, the provinces of Valencia and Castellón, in the Valencia region, remain under orange alert.
Pope Francis also expressed “his solidarity with the people of Valencia” on Friday. “May God support those who suffer and the rescuers,” he declared at the end of the Angelus prayer.
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