Tens of thousands of police and emergency workers are still searching in the heavily affected region around Valencia for victims of the storm caused by the Dana weather phenomenon. The Unidad Militar de Emergencias (UME) works around the clock in various shopping centers to empty large parking garages in search of victims. This is the case in the Centro Comercial Bonaire in Aldaia, the largest shopping center in Valencia.
The shopping center’s garage contains 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 rescue workers are trying to lower the water level in the parking garage, and then use divers and robots to search the hundreds of cars in search of victims who got stuck and drowned.
There is currently one and a half meters of water in the underground garage, and dozens of vehicles have already been scoured. No victims have been found so far. “They said that 600 people had died here, imagine how scared we entered the parking garage yesterday,” one of the volunteers tells The Country. “We have demarcated the search into sectors. We have broken the windows of the vehicles and probed the ground with sticks, but have found nothing at this time.”
None of the approximately 2,000 employees are missing, the shopping center told local media. “But we have no clarity about our customers,” said the Spanish newspaper 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 shopping center in the nearby municipality of Alfafar, the UME is also trying to pump millions of liters of water from the garage with 1,600 parking spaces. With five pump trucks, the rescuers managed to lower the water level by one meter within 48 hours. So there is still a lot of pumping to be done. That is why the UME has now received reinforcements from Málaga, Fuengirola and Marbella.
Also in the center of Sedaví, next to Alfafar, about fifty rescue workers are trying to search a parking garage. The emergency services received reports that twelve to fifteen people were still missing there. “It looks like someone saw people going in, but didn’t see them come out,” said José María González of the Madrid Fire Department’s rescue team. The Country. “But at this point we don’t know, it’s speculation based on a comment that was passed on to us.”
