L’Spain heals its wounds. Three days after the deadly floods in the south-east of the country, the number of dead people was revised upwards by emergency services this Friday 1is november. According to a new provisional report, 205 people lost their lives, including 202 in the Valencia region alone.
Dozens of people still missing
While the number of flood victims continues to rise, several dozen people are still missing. On Thursday, the Minister of Territorial Policy Ángel Víctor Torres declared that “dozens and dozens” of people were still wanted. If the Valencia region was hardest hit by the torrential rains with 202 victims, 2 other deaths were also recorded in the neighboring region of Castile-La Mancha and one in Andalusia, emergency services said.
Difficult Spanish emergency operations
On the ground, cleaning operations continue. This Friday, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles announced that 500 soldiers belonging to the Military Emergency Unit (UME) were deployed as reinforcements to participate in the operations. They are added to a workforce of 1,200 men already mobilized in the disaster areas. “We will send 120,000 army men if necessary,” she declared in an interview on TVE. Among the army's priorities, in addition to searching for the missing, soldiers are working hard to reopen the roads in order to be able to deliver aid, particularly food.
At the same time, thousands of people are mobilizing by traveling to municipalities located in the province of Valencia to help the victims. Cleaning streets littered with mud and debris, they supply communities with water and food.
The province of Huelva once again on red alert
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While the red alert has returned to orange in areas affected by flooding, the region of Huelva, in southern Spain, has been placed on red alert for the risk of torrential rain this Friday. “Heavy rainfall is expected in the warning zone in the coming hours,” said Aemet, the country’s meteorological agency, in its latest bulletin.
The Pope expresses his solidarity with the Spanish people
From the Vatican where he pronounced the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis expressed his solidarity with the Spanish people bereaved by this climatic episode of rare violence, considered the deadliest since the floods of October 1973 , which, at the time, had cost the lives of 300 people. “Let us pray for the people of the Iberian Peninsula […] ravaged by storm Dana. May God support those who suffer and the rescuers,” said the pontiff.
