Emergency services are asking relatives of missing people to provide DNA samples to help identify the victims.
The Spanish Guardia Civil on Tuesday, November 5, asked the relatives of people missing since last week's deadly floods in the Valencia region to provide DNA samples in order to allow the identification of the victims.
Under fire for criticism due to the slowness of relief efforts, the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, for his part announced the release of 10.6 billion euros in the form of loans and grants to help affected people and businesses. by these flash floods which left at least 217 dead in the provinces of Valencia but also Castile-La Mancha and Andalusia, the worst disaster of this type in the recent history of Spain.
Of this toll, only 111 people have been identified so far.
89 people missing so far
A week after the disaster, the government still refuses to provide a precise number of missing people. The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, simply mentioned a “significant number” of missing people, judging that in the absence of reliable information, it was “preferable not to specify”.
The judicial authorities in Valencia said they had so far identified 89 missing people. This number was established solely from reports from families who provided elements and biological samples allowing the identification of their loved ones, specified the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencia region.
10.6 billion in aid released
“There are still missing people to be found, homes and businesses destroyed, buried under mud and many people suffering from serious shortages,” Pedro Sanchez said at a press conference in Madrid to announce the release of the 10 .6 billion in aid. “We have to keep working.”
This aid includes in particular 838 million euros in direct payments to small businesses and self-employed workers affected by the disaster and five billion euros in loans guaranteed by the State, which will also finance all of the clean-up operations and half repairs to damaged infrastructure, said the president of the socialist government.
15,000 police officers and soldiers deployed
Faced with criticism from the opposition and the anger of part of the population, Pedro Sanchez stressed that Madrid had deployed to date 14,898 police officers and soldiers in the areas affected by the flash floods, as well as hundreds of guards foresters, forensic experts and customs officers with heavy equipment.
The head of government justified his decision not to decree a state of emergency, which would have given the hand to the authorities in Madrid, by a concern for efficiency in crisis management. He assured that human resources had been immediately made available to deploy them in the affected areas but that this required first obtaining the green light from the regional government led by the conservatives of the People's Party.
Related News :