Nearly a thousand soldiers are deployed on the ground, mainly in the Valencia region, alongside firefighters, police and rescue workers who are seeking to locate possible survivors and are working to clear the disaster areas.
The emergency services will now “enter the second stage”, consisting of finding the missing people, Defense Minister Margarita Robles stressed on Wednesday evening, specifying that their number remained “unknown”.
The association has launched an appeal for donations to raise funds to help the Spanish disaster victims. “We are launching a call for mobilization throughout France. A call for donations so that we can quickly help our friends in Spain. We are going to release funds, we are in the process of seeing how we organize ourselves,” one of its spokespersons declared on France Bleu this Wednesday morning.
“In eight hours, almost the equivalent of eleven months of precipitation fell in Paris.” According to meteorologist Patrick Marlière, interviewed this Thursday morning on France Info, 500 liters of rain per square meter fell in the Valence region. A comparison? The annual average, recorded in the French capital, is 600 liters. This gives an idea of the scale of the phenomenon. “It’s a situation that we’re used to seeing at this time of year,” but the quantities of water that fell are “exceptional.”
Spain wakes up this Thursday morning in mourning. At least 95 people lost their lives in devastating floods following unprecedented rains. The toll is provisional and could increase during the day. “We assume that there are many missing people,” warned the Minister of Territorial Policy Ángel Víctor Torres on Wednesday evening.