Floods in Spain | The death toll climbs to 217, the king and queen on site

(Paiporta) King Felipe VI of Spain and his wife, Queen Letizia, arrived on Sunday in southeastern Spain, where new heavy rains are expected after unprecedented floods earlier this week that have already caused at least 217 deaths.

Accompanied by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and regional president Carlos Mazón, the sovereigns arrived shortly after noon (6 a.m. Eastern time) in Paiporta, a town of around 25,000 inhabitants located in the suburbs of Valencia, the one of the most bereaved by bad weather.

The sovereigns went to the crisis center set up by the authorities, where they received the latest information concerning the relief operations, the royal house said in a message on X. They must then go to Chiva, another town near Valencia hit hard by the tragedy.

Their visit comes as the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMET) issued a new orange alert for heavy rains in the Valencia region, where 100 liters of water per square meter (or 10 cm) could fall in places. A red alert – synonymous with extreme danger – has also been issued for the province of Almeria, in Andalusia (South), due to a risk of flooding.

According to a latest report, 217 people died in the floods, including 213 in the Valencia region alone, three in Castile-la-Mancha, where the lifeless body of a sixty-year-old woman from Letur who went missing on Tuesday was discovered on Sunday morning, and one in Andalusia.

In Letur, in the province of Albacete, the body of the woman carried away by the raging waves was discovered 12 kilometers from the place of her disappearance, the government delegate in the region of Albacete said at a press conference. Castile-La Mancha, Pedro Antonio Ruiz Santos.

Among the victims of these floods are also two Chinese nationals, according to the Chinese embassy in Madrid. Two other Chinese nationals are missing.

“We are looking for answers”

The authorities expect the toll to rise. “There are still flooded ground floors or garages, basements and parking lots to be cleared and it is foreseeable that dead people will be found in these spaces,” declared the Minister of Transport, Oscar Puente, in a message on X.

According to him, the toll has changed relatively little over the past 48 hours because the emergency services first explored “the more accessible areas”, located “on the surface”.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis said Sunday “pray for Valencia and other people in Spain who are suffering so much right now.”

On the ground, the population remains faced with a dramatic situation, while numerous transport and telecommunications infrastructures have been destroyed or put out of service. In many communities, piles of cars and muddy debris still litter the roadways.

“We’ve been cleaning for three days. Everything is covered in mud,” Helena Danna Daniella, owner of a bar-restaurant in Chiva, told AFP.

“It feels like the end of the world,” added this thirty-year-old, saying she was still in shock five days after the bad weather. People trapped in raging floods ‘were asking for help and there was nothing we could do’ […] It drives you crazy. We look for answers and we don’t find them.”

New arrests

Faced with this chaos, Mr. Sánchez announced on Saturday the sending of 5,000 additional soldiers to the region, bringing their numbers to 7,500, the “largest deployment of armed forces ever carried out in Spain in peacetime”, in his words. .

In addition to these soldiers, there are 5,000 police officers and civil guards responsible for supporting their 5,000 colleagues already on the ground.

Furthermore, 20 new arrests took place on Saturday evening for acts of theft and looting, the police announced, bringing to around a hundred the total number of people arrested for such offenses since Wednesday.

“We are facing the challenge of our lives,” admitted Saturday evening Mr. Mazón, the conservative president of the Valencia region, widely criticized for the delay in sending his services a telephone alert message to residents. Tuesday evening.

In the center of Valencia, spared from bad weather, thousands of residents gathered again on Sunday morning with shovels and brooms to go on foot to neighboring towns to help the victims.

The Valencia government had, however, decided to limit the number of volunteers authorized to go to these localities to 2,000, in order to avoid the congestion problems that the authorities faced on Friday and Saturday.