Forest guards and customs officers as reinforcements
The 15,000 soldiers and police officers deployed on the ground are also supported by 287 forest guards, around a hundred customs agents and 44 forensic doctors, listed Pedro Sánchez, during his press conference, also mentioning “600 specialized vehicles and machines for pumping, cleaning and supplying affected areas.”
“We are better, but we are not doing well,” confides the mayor of the martyred town of Paiporta
On the ground, the situation remains very complicated. In Paiporta, a town of 25,000 inhabitants considered the epicenter of the tragedy, with more than 70 victims, drinking water is available again but the streets are still clogged with vehicles.
“We are better, but we are not doing well,” mayor Maribel Albalat told public broadcaster TVE.
Electricity restored almost everywhere
According to the Spanish executive, electricity has been restored to “98% of homes” and “68%” of damaged telephone lines have been repaired. In addition, 40 kilometers of roads and 74 kilometers of railways were repaired.
First bodies handed over to families
The courts have already authorized the handing over of “nearly fifty bodies” of the deceased to their families, indicated the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia on the social network has never been communicated.
The death toll rises to 219, according to the Spanish government
The human toll continues to rise, a week after the “floods of the century”. There are now 219 deaths, according to the Spanish government. Among the victims, 214 died in the Valencia region, four in Castile-la-Mancha and one in Andalusia.
The government releases an emergency plan of more than 10 billion euros
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Tuesday a first emergency plan of 10.6 billion euros to help residents and businesses affected by the historic and deadly floods which ravaged the south-east of the country.
“The total investment of all these first measures” will exceed “10.6 billion euros”, declared the socialist leader, unveiling a series of aid for the disaster victims, but also for the local authorities concerned. “It’s a good first step, an agile step,” he insisted.
The number of police and soldiers on the ground doubled to nearly 15,000 men
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Tuesday that he had doubled in three days to nearly 15,000 the number of soldiers and police deployed on the ground after the floods which ravaged the south-east of the country.
“In the 72 hours since I last spoke […]the number of soldiers, members of the national police, civil guards, deployed by the Spanish government increased from 7,300 to 14,898,” Pedro Sánchez said during a press conference.
Shovels and brooms are not enough, elected officials are calling for machines and professionals to clean
If numerous volunteers equipped with shovels and brooms have once again converged in the devastated towns, elected officials are calling for professional equipment to clear the hundreds of cars still overturned on the roads.
“We need machines, we need professionals who come and clean the streets, empty them, so that people can take care of their homes,” implored the mayor of Paiporta, Maribel Albalat, on the TVE channel. In Paiporta, “100% of homes and 100% of businesses were affected. We need businesses to help us,” urged the councilor.
In the Valencia region alone, more than 4,500 businesses were affected, as well as 50,000 agricultural hectares.
According to the Valencia Chamber of Commerce, 4,500 businesses located on the ground floor could have been affected. Dozens of shopping centers and industrial zones were also affected, while transporters in the region lost numerous trucks.
On the agricultural side, the damage is also impressive, particularly in citrus fields, of which the Valencia region is one of the leading exporters. According to the regional agricultural union La Unio, 50,000 hectares of crops would have been affected.
After the disaster, an astronomical bill for Spain
“It is still too early to make estimates,” said Celedonio Villamayor, director of the Insurance Compensation Consortium (CCS), a public-private organization responsible for paying compensation in the event of a natural disaster. But “we know that in economic terms”, this disaster “will certainly have a very high cost”, he continued. The bulk of the bill should fall on the insurance sector, which will have to compensate businesses and individuals.
For comparison, the cost of the floods of July 2021 in Western Europe (Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Netherlands), which caused more than 200 deaths, had reached nearly 43 billion dollars (40 billion euros), according to the reinsurer Swiss Re.
Aid of 6,000 euros for all affected families in the Valencia region
The “president” of the Generalitat of Valencia (the equivalent of the regional council) asked the government for a first aid package worth 31.4 million euros to “rebuild” and “mitigate” the effects of the disaster, reports RTVE. He also announced that the Generalitat Council has approved a first line which will provide “emergency” 6,000 euros to “all families” whose homes were affected by the storm.
Human remains discovered in Letur, a city already in mourning
Located between Albacete and Murcia, in the southeast of the country, the town of Letur was devastated by torrential rains last week. Two people lost their lives and four are still missing. But human remains have just been discovered by search teams in the Ramblas district, reports Spanish radio and television.
After the floods the day before, traffic at Barcelona El Prat airport is still very disrupted this Tuesday morning
Due to heavy rains in Catalonia, the airport runway and terminal were completely flooded on Monday afternoon. the images were impressive.
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Phew, the weather is improving in Catalonia this Tuesday
The Spanish meteorological institute Aemet returned Catalonia to orange rain alert on Monday evening. And this Tuesday, this vigilance drops back to the yellow level. However, rain is forecast in the area over the next few hours. As a reminder, torrential rains fell on the Barcelona region yesterday.
It is perhaps this Tuesday that the parking lot of all worries can be explored
This is the underground car park of the Bonaire shopping center, in Aldaia, a town of 31,000 inhabitants in the suburbs of Valencia. With a capacity of 5,700 places, it is completely flooded and the authorities fear finding bodies there. “All the means of the armed forces are at work to dry out this parking lot, but there are millions of liters,” admitted General Javier Marcos.
Bodies found in the disaster begin to be returned to families
The courts have already authorized the handing over of “nearly fifty bodies” of the deceased to their families, the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia indicated on the social network X.
A morgue ready to receive up to 400 victims
Search operations for the missing, six days after the floods which left 217 dead, focused on underground car parks in the Valencia region on Monday.
“We have planned a morgue that can accommodate 400 dead today,” explained General Javier Marcos, head of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), during a press conference. “At the beginning, there was a morgue set up for around 100 victims, but we quickly realized that this would not be enough,” he stressed.
The Barcelona region on red alert for a few hours
On Monday morning, the Spanish meteorological agency (Aemet) officially assured that the “meteorological crisis” situation had ended in the Valencia region, but the concern moved in the middle of the day some 350 km further north, in Barcelona, placed on red alert.
Torrential rains led to the cancellation of 153 flights, said Transport Minister Oscar Puente. Eighteen other flights also had to be diverted. High-speed train traffic between Barcelona and Madrid was also disrupted.
Impressive images, widely relayed on social networks, also showed vehicles blocked on a highway near the Catalan capital or flooded streets in neighboring towns. The red alert ended at 2 p.m.
Welcome to this new Live
Hello everyone. While particularly violent floods are putting Spain into mourning, the editorial staff of 20 Minutes is mobilized to give you all the information on current research. The results are only provisional and are already particularly tragic. This devastating natural disaster left at least 217 dead: 213 in the Valencia region alone, three in Castile-La Mancha and one in Andalusia.
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