“There are still people missing, the situation is devastating,” says its mayor

At the close of this edition, the number of deaths there exceeded 45. And it’s a figure that could increase, as the mayor confirmed, Maria Isabel Albalatat EL ESPAÑOL. This represents practically half of the deaths occurring throughout the province, according to official data from the Generalitat as of 7:30 p.m.

“We don’t know how many people are still missing. The situation is devastating and unpredictable,” says Albalat.

The image of the city, in his own words, is unprecedented. “We never imagined that this could happen to us. The streets are devastated and there are houses that have disappeared,” he lamented.

The mayor, who followed the last hour of the drama this Wednesday from the Coordination Center, asked her neighbors for caution and patience. Furthermore, he refuses to accept that the city looks like a horror film. “The image is one of all citizens supporting each other and intending to move forward together,” he said.

Other testimonies told EL ESPAÑOL that everything they experienced was “chilling”. “No matter what I can tell you, you can’t imagine it,” said Yurena, a resident of Picanya who went to Paiporta on Wednesday morning to try to find a friend, who was ultimately unharmed.

“A horror film”

“Everything is mud. There are no roads, the subway tracks are destroyed and cars are piled on top of each other, cutting off the streets. It’s like a horror film,” he said. he told this newspaper.

In this sense, he assured that he had seen “everything”, even “ravine crabs walking in the street”.

The city was without electricity, water and communications all day Tuesday. Thus, hysteria took hold of some, even going so far as to loot businesses, as reported by direct witnesses.

Security forces and emergency teams worked early Tuesday morning to search for the missing. Also in street cleaning.

Tuesday afternoon, it was not raining and the neighbors lived a normal life, without realizing the danger. Suddenly, a storm of water flooded the streets of Paiporta and neighboring municipalities, such as Picanya, Sedaví or Alfafartaking everything forward.

He surprised many neighbors in their cars, where they were stuck. Others were caught in the garage as they prepared to take their vehicle out onto the street, intending to ensure their safety.

a rescue

Another resident of Picanya, a town neighboring Paiporta, explained that around seven in the afternoon, many neighbors began to sound the alarm, “saying that we had to get the cars out of the garages “.

“We took them to the street and in a few minutes the flood arrived. If it had happened five minutes earlier, it would have caught me in the car,” he lamented to EL ESPAÑOL this Tuesday.

He was able to take refuge on the third floor, where he saw a woman and a girl asking for help. They were, according to their testimony, hanging on a tree. “The street was a river, it was impossible to cross to where they were.”

This story, however, had a happy ending. The two women were able to resist the force of the water and after two hours, this neighbor was able to rescue them and bring them to safety.

The municipalities of the region L’Horta Sudin the metropolitan area of ​​Valencia, suffered enormous damage. The Poyo ravine overflowed, even completely destroying the Picanya bridge.

Refugees

The proximity of these villages to the city caused many affected people to walk towards the capital of Turia in search of food or a place to shelter. This is the case from Dani, from Paiporta, or from Bea and her family, from Alfafar.

The first, as he commented on his social networks, went to his parents in Mislata. “I don’t know how I arrived on foot from Paiporta, with the 3 year old child, the dog and my wife,” he posted.

Béa, her husband and her daughter also decided to take refuge with her sister. They lived on the ground floor in Alfafar and lost everything.

At the time of the flood, they were sitting on the couch and, within five minutes, “water was flowing everywhere.” “Thank God we immediately went to the upstairs neighbor’s house. If we stay, we will drown,” he adds.

With a suitcase they had borrowed, they walked to San Marcelino. It took them an hour and a half to get there. “We feel very abandonedbut we are alive, that’s what’s important.”

Fatal casualties

Deaths from floods caused by DANA in the province of Valencia They now stand at 92according to the latest provisional count provided this afternoon by the Generalitat based on information received from the various security and emergency organizations.

The toll continues to rise this Wednesday, after confirming this morning a first figure of 51 deaths, which rose to 62 at noon, to 70 at the beginning of the afternoon, and currently stands at 92 people.

The Generalitat has kept the Multiple Victims Procedure activated since yesterday evening and throughout the day the bodies were removed and transported to the City of Justice of Valencia, where a space was set up to receive them before autopsies and identifications .

The rescues of people carried out today number in the hundreds, according to data provided by different organizations that manage emergencies, while some 1,200 people are still stuck at different points of the A-3 and A-7 motorways, where around 5,000 vehicles are stuck.

Although the effects of the rains have been seen throughout the province, the most affected areas are in the surroundings of Llíria (Chiva, Cheste, Vilamarxant, Riba-roja and Loriguilla), Requena (Utiel and Buñol) and the region of Horta Sud (Alfafar, Benetússer, Paiporta, Torrent, Aldaia, Mislata and Xirivella).