Large parts of Spain have experienced extreme rainfall in recent days. Rain has led to flooding in southeastern Spain, among other places. The death toll has exceeded 200 and could rise further.
Rescuers are still looking for hundreds of missing people. The. works in various shopping centers Military Emergency Unit (UME) around the clock to empty large parking garages in search of more victims. This is, among other things, the case in the largest shopping center in Valencia, the Centro Comercial Bonaire.
Fear of “mass grave”
This is a garage with approximately 5,700 parking spaces, of which an estimated 2,800 are underground. After the storm last week, the water was up to the ceiling. More than fifty troops have been deployed for days to lower the water level. Not an obvious matter in a parking garage of 60,000 square meters, the size of about eight football fields. Divers and robots are being deployed to search the hundreds of cars, looking for victims who became trapped and drowned.
There is currently one and a half meters of water in the underground garage, a soldier told the Spanish media. So far, emergency responders have only found empty cars. However, it is expected that bodies will still be found there, local media report. There are fears of a “mass grave”.
According to the mall’s security officer who was working during the storm, both staff and visitors had just enough time to escape to the first floor. (Read more below the photo)
Rescue workers clear the rubble at the entrance to the shopping center’s parking garage — © REUTERS
None of the approximately 2,000 employees are missing, the shopping center told local media. “We have no clarity about our customers,” the Spanish medium said ABC. “About 600 of them, together with the staff, were able to get to safety on the first floor. But we have no idea what happened in the underground parking garage.”
Millions of liters of water
In a neighboring shopping center in the municipality of Alfafar, the UME is also trying to pump out millions of liters of water from the garage with 1,600 parking spaces. With five pump trucks, they managed to lower the water level by one meter within 48 hours. So there is still a lot of pumping to be done.
A fire officer feared that the large amount of water they were pumping out – together with the new rainfall – would cause the sewer to collapse, the Spanish newspaper reported The Country. In the meantime, the rescuers have received reinforcements from Málaga, Fuengirola and Marbella. What they will find in the parking garages remains to be seen.
