VALENCIA: Spain will send 10,000 more troops and police officers to the flood-hit eastern Valencia region devastated by heavy floods that have killed at least 211 people, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday.
Hopes of finding survivors three days after torrents of muddy water submerged the region and wrecked infrastructure were slim in the country’s deadliest such disaster in decades.
All the deaths have been recorded in the eastern Valencia region, where thousands of security and emergency services personnel were frantically clearing debris and mud in the search for bodies.
In a televised address, Prime Minister Sanchez said that the flood disaster was the second deadliest flood in Europe this century and announced a huge increase in the troops’ deployment for relief works.
The Spanish government had accepted the Valencia region leader’s request for 5,000 more security personnel and informed him of a further deployment of 5,000 police officers and civil guards, Sanchez said.
Spain was carrying out its largest deployment of army and security force personnel in peacetime, he added.
Restoring order and distributing aid to destroyed towns and villages — some of which have been cut off from food, water and power for days — is a priority.
Authorities have come under fire over the adequacy of warning systems before the floods, and some stricken residents have complained the response to the disaster is too slow.
“I am aware the response is not enough, there are problems and severe shortages… towns buried by mud, desperate people searching for their relatives,” Sanchez said.
Susana Camarero, deputy head of the Valencia region, told journalists on Saturday that essential supplies had been delivered “from day one” to all accessible settlements. But it was “logical” that affected residents were asking for more, she added.
Authorities in the Valencia region have restricted access to roads for two days to allow emergency services to carry out search, rescue and logistics operations more effectively.
Officials have said dozens of people remain unaccounted for. But with telephone and transport networks severely damaged, establishing a precise figure is difficult.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Friday told Cadena Ser radio station that it was “reasonable” to believe more fatalities would emerge.
It is also hoped that the estimated number of missing people will fall once telephone and internet services are running again.
Thousands of ordinary citizens pushing shopping trolleys and carrying cleaning equipment took to the streets on Friday to help with the clean-up effort.
Camarero said some municipalities were “overwhelmed by the amount of solidarity and food” they had received.
