DANA in Valencia, Spain, leaves dozens missing: rains lose intensity

Spanish rescue teams continue the search for victims of the worst floods in more than fifty years in the country, which have left at least 95 dead and many missing due to DANA.

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Almost a thousand soldiers were deployed on the ground, mainly in the Valencia area, in the east, along with firefighters, police and first responders trying to locate possible survivors and clear the numerous destruction caused by the storm.

The last balance reported by the authorities reported 95 deaths, 92 of them in the Valencian Communitythe most affected region. Two others died in neighboring Castilla-La Mancha and a third in Andalusia.

This balance, the highest since floods that left 300 dead in October 1973, “is going to increase” because there are still “many missing people,” the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, admitted on Wednesday.

The president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, declared three days of national mourning and will arrive at 10:30 am (09:30 GMT) in Valencia, where he will visit the coordination center for rescue tasks.

In a brief televised speech on Wednesday, the socialist leader assured that his government will not leave the injured “alone” and asked the residents of the area to be attentive.

Rescuers must now “begin the second phase, which is search and rescue,” Defense Minister Margarita Robles said on Wednesday, indicating that there was still a “big unknown” about the number of missing people.

Mud and debris flood Valencia, Spain

On Thursday at dawn, mThousands of people continued to be deprived of electricity in the Valencian Communityaccording to emergency services.

Many roads remain closed, some due to the accumulation of vehicles dragged by water, covered in mud and debris.

“I never thought I would experience this,” Eliu Sánchez, a resident of Sedaví, a municipality of 10,000 inhabitants devastated by the elements, told the AFP news agency, who lived a nightmarish night.

“We saw a young man who was in the open field and the current carried him away”said the 32-year-old electrician. “He was on top of the car, it looks like he tried to jump onto another one, but it took him away.”

According to the authorities, one of the most affected towns is Paiporta, on the southern outskirts of the city of Valencia. About forty people died there, including a mother and her three-month-old baby swept away by the current.

The regional president of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazón, said on Wednesday that emergency services had carried out “200 ground rescues” and “70 air evacuations” with helicopters during the day.

He also explained that lifeguards had managed to reach all the affected areas after numerous towns were isolated for much of the day.

More than 300 liters of water per square meter fell in Valencia

According to the meteorological agency AEMET, on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning several towns in the region received more than 300 liters of water per square meter. The maximum was recorded in the small town of Chiva, with 491 liters, the equivalent “of a year of rainfall,” he said.

The Spanish press, which describes the episode as the “floods of the century”, begins to question the reaction of the authorities.s: The alert message from the civil protection service was sent on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m., despite the fact that the AEMET had declared a “red alert” since the morning.

The Valencian Community and the Spanish Mediterranean coast in general regularly suffer in the northern autumn the phenomenon of the “cold drop”, an isolated depression at high altitude that causes sudden and extremely violent rains, sometimes for several days.

Scientists have been warning for years that extreme weather phenomena such as heat waves or these types of storms are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change.

“The flash floods in Spain are a new terrible reminder of climate change and its chaotic nature”Jess Neumann, professor of Hydrology at the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom, said in a note.

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