At least 89 people are still missing after floods in eastern Spain
Valencia authorities say search efforts continue as prime minister announces €10.6bn fund to help victims of disaster
At least 89 people remain missing after deadly floods in eastern Spain, regional judicial authorities in Valencia have confirmed, as the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said he was earmarking €10.6bn (£8.9bn) to help victims.
The number includes only those who have been reported missing by family members who have also provided personal information and biological samples to allow for their identification, the superior court of justice of the Valencia region said in a statement on Tuesday. It added that there could be more cases of people who have disappeared whose details have not yet been registered.
More than 200 people were confirmed to have died after heavy rains last week caused waterways to overflow, creating flash floods that surged through suburbs south of the city of Valencia, sweeping away cars and bridges, and flooding properties and underground car parks.
“There are still missing persons to be located, homes and businesses destroyed, buried under the mud, and many people suffering severe shortages,” Sánchez said in a press conference in Madrid earlier on Tuesday. “We have to keep working.”
At least 217 people died in Valencia, Castile-La Mancha and Andalusia, but only 133 have been identified so far.
The court said coroners had performed 195 autopsies and that 62 bodies were still pending identification. Spain’s national guard on Tuesday asked relatives of people missing to provide DNA samples to identify bodies.
A research vessel from the national scientific body the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) will reach Valencia on 9 November to help in the search efforts, the science ministry said on Tuesday. The vessel has technology to obtain detailed images of the seafloor and explore hard-to-reach areas, it said. There have been suggestions that some of the missing people could have been swept down rivers and out to sea.
The aid will include €838m in direct cash to small businesses and freelance workers affected by the disaster and €5bn of state-guaranteed loans. The national government will finance 100% of the cleanup costs incurred by local governments and half of the repairs to infrastructure, Sánchez said.
More than 100,000 cars were damaged by the floods, said Sonia Luque, the coordinator of REAC, the network of road assistance companies, while damages to businesses in towns hit by floods could rise to more than €10bn.
In the face of criticism and anger at the slow response to the disaster, Sánchez said the government had deployed nearly 15,000 police and military to help clear flood-affected areas, along with hundreds of forestry officials, forensic scientists, customs agents and heavy machinery to clear roads and rubble.
Defending the government’s response, Sánchez said he had not called a state of emergency, which would have given Madrid control of the crisis, because it would have been less efficient.
He said personnel had been ready to be deployed from the first minute but had required the approval of the regional government run by the conservative People’s Party.
Valencia’s regional leader Carlos Mazón said on Monday the delay in warning people was caused by the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ), which measures the flow of rivers and ravines for the state, cancelling a planned alert three times.
The CHJ fired back that it does not issue flood risk alerts, which are the responsibility of Spain’s regional governments.
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