Six days after the tragedy, the authorities refuse to give a definitive assessment of the number of victims
The latter indicated this weekend that a list of 2,500 disappearance reports were still being verified.
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Deadly floods in Spain
“How many deaths are there?” In Paiporta, in the suburbs near Valencia, the most affected city with around sixty deaths already counted, the visit of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia (new window) was marked Sunday by boos and mud throwing. More and more voices are being raised to point out the responsibility of the Spanish authorities in the management of this disaster (new window) the latest official report of which shows at least 217 deaths (new window).
Local authorities keep repeating that the final number of victims could be higher, while an unspecified number of residents are still missing and many underground car parks, completely flooded, have not yet been fully inspected.
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LIVE – Floods in Spain: the latest information
Because if the number of victims increased rapidly during the first days, it is now being done slowly. Since Saturday, only seven new deaths have been announced by regional authorities. Enough to fuel rumors on social networks where many Internet users accuse the authorities of concealing the real number of victims.
The mayor of the municipality of Pedralba declared three new deaths which had not been added to this provisional toll, the newspaper reported on Sunday The Country (new window). Added to this is another unknown: how many people are still missing to this day?
Painstaking work to identify victims
The authorities have set up an emergency number to collect reports from people without news of their loved ones. Citing internal sources, the Iberian daily reported on Saturday that out of 5,000 reports, 2,500 people were still missing. Although this figure should continue to fall in the coming days, as people are able to give signs of life by contacting their loved ones, the telephone network and the Internet are still partially out of service in certain localities, the absence of communication on the The course of operations of local authorities reinforces the feeling of distrust within the population, explains The Country.
From now on, specifies the Spanish daily (new window)the bodies that remain to be detected are underwater, inside cars or covered in mud. The identification process involves the movement of forensic teams dedicated to the removal of corpses. Each deceased is assigned a color code which is noted in a report. Fingerprints and biological samples are collected in case DNA analysis is necessary for subsequent identification, adds the Guardia Civil. Then, the data obtained are cross-referenced with those provided by the relatives of the missing persons and the corresponding disappearance reports.
These reports may include a physical description, a recent photograph or even the existence of prosthetics, scars or tattoos. Biological samples are also collected from the direct relatives of the missing persons. The fingerprints are then checked against the police database. All the bodies on which the autopsy was carried out, whether identified or not, are transferred from the basements of the site where the reception of victims is centralized to the Fira Valencia, the Great Fair of Valencia, where Improvised morgues were urgently set up.
Volunteers are organizing to fill the gaps
Without news from their loved ones, faced with a lack of communication from the authorities, many people try to obtain information on their own. Volunteers traveling to areas ravaged by floods provide information to administrators of online accounts dedicated to missing people. With all the data collected, an Internet user even created an interactive map on Google Maps where each GPS point gives the name, first name, age and measurements of the person sought. But six days after the disaster, the chances of finding survivors seem slim.
