Five days after the torrential rains, emergency services are still having difficulty accessing the underground parking lot of the Bonaire shopping center in Aldaia. According to Spanish media, several bodies have already been spotted by divers.
Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente was clear this Sunday, November 3. While the latest report from this week's deadly floods in Spain reports 217 deaths, including 213 in the Valencia region alone, “there are still flooded ground floors or garages, basements and parking lots to be cleared and it is foreseeable that deceased people will be found in these spaces,” he warned on his X account.
Among the “spaces” causing the most concern is the underground parking lot of the Bonaire shopping center, in Aldaia, a town located west of Valencia. According to the El Plural news site, divers were able to access the parking lot for the first time on Friday and were able to observe the presence of several bodies.
The authorities have not given a precise figure on the number of victims found, but rescuers fear it is very high. “It’s a cemetery,” said several sources cited Saturday by the ESdiario news site.
Lowering water levels, a priority
When the torrential rains fell late Tuesday, the various restaurants, cinemas and stores were open and several hundred people were in the Bonaire shopping center, one of the largest in the region, specifies ESdiario. According to El Plural, authorities believe that many people went down to the underground parking lot to retrieve their vehicles and flee as the waters rose inexorably.
According to images and several testimonies, the water reached three meters high in the underground car park with 5,800 spaces. The escalators connecting it to the shopping center were buried under debris and access to the parking lot from the street was also made inaccessible by the flooding.
This Sunday, the Spanish Military Emergency Unit (UME) was still hard at work to lower the water level using pumps to allow rescuers to access the scene more easily, indicates La Vanguardia. They will then be able to see the full extent of the horror scene which took place at the start of the week.
