At City of THE Justice of Valence Vans loaded with lifeless bodies keep arriving. They do it from neighboring towns, like Paiporta, Torrent, Benetúser or Sedaví and they all have several things in common: the first, that they were found because of the floods. The second, that they will not be able to be picked up by their families anytime soon.
Nearby, where groups of forensic doctors and members of the UME, Military Police and National Policethe rumors dissipate when the word “press” rings in the air. The truth is that they know a lot of things here, but they don’t want to say anything. Most of the corpses They are not identified and the relatives of the deceased begin to gather at the gates without really knowing what to do.
Eight kilometers away, in the Valencia Fair, a pavilion is about to become the new largest morgue in Spain. So far, it’s just a matter of logistics: the bodies are numbered and they are starting to be moved due to lack of space in the court premises. The predictions are big. Unofficial sources working on the rollout claim that we will soon reach the 500 victims.
A Military Police vehicle stands guard at the entrance to the morgue located in the City of Justice.
While the emergency services consulted on site by SPANISH They claim that there are still many spaces, such as several parking lots flooded of the area, to be recorded and where there could be “a lot” new deaths. “We don’t know the exact number of missing people. We can’t imagine the scale of what we’re dealing with,” said a Valencian firefighter while inspecting a devastated supermarket.
“The update is that there is 207 accredited victims. It is impossible to know the number of missing people and it would not be wise for me to give a figure. The data of 1,900 missing people has not been taken into account, these are the calls that 112 receives saying that they cannot find their loved ones, but this is mainly due to the communication failures. Additionally, people who finally reunite with their loved ones don’t report it, so these predictions can’t be made. Evaluations in this sense would mislead us and would not generate confidence,” he assured. Fernando Grande MarlaskaMinister of the Interior, at the microphones of the show Hour 25 of the Chain of Being.
The epicenter of the disaster, full of neighbors and volunteers, this Friday. Photograph taken with the Leica SL3.
Paiporta (Valencia)
zero point
In recent days, the Emergency military unit had the sole task of locating and evacuating the corpses. Paiporta, a town of 27,000 inhabitants 10 kilometers from Valencia, it has become a sort of open-air cemetery. During the All relicsnational holiday in Spain, its sacred field was paradoxically flooded with mud and closed. And its inhabitants are trying to regain a normality that currently seems impossible.
There, everything continues to consist of the shouts of angry people, the several kilometers traveled to reach the city on foot and the many people carrying food and water. Suddenly, everything was abundant: food products, but also the volunteers who arrived crossing the bridge from the city of Valencia with shovels and buckets. The regional government asked, a few hours after the arrival of a large wave of people, to stop coming because they were blocking the access roads.
A group of men try to pour water into a sewer in the center of Paiporta. Photograph taken with the Leica SL3.
Police, fire and ambulance sirens remain new soundtrack from the hellish movie that the Valencians live. THE thousands of vehicles damaged They remain piled up on the sides after the intervention of several excavators, improvised clothing stands have been formed and 4x4s invade the main arteries of the affected towns to try to provide help.
In the streets of the affected cities, where water was flowing a few days ago, they have been transformed into mud channels. The neighbors, beaten and still covered in mud, don’t ask for much. The majority, when questioned, denounce the lack of support: “We have received nothing, neither from the government nor from the EMU. “What we have right now is a lot of cooperation between neighbors, but nothing more.”
Volunteers distribute free food and drinks in a tent in the center of Paiporta. Photograph taken with the Leica SL3.
Thousands of soldiers
The current situation in Valencia It’s really complex.. On the one hand, thousands of people showed up ready to help, but some cities woke up full of people who didn’t quite know how to cooperate. On the other hand, one was decreed restriction of mobility up to next Monday with the intention that these “volunteers” cannot access it.
Although the government formally rejected the offer of France send 200 firefighters when the tragedy occurred and also the cooperation of El Salvador. They then insisted that “this is not necessary help” and that “there are many troops”. Although the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazon, This Friday, he requested help from the Ministry of Defense to send reinforcements.
“The municipalities, the Provincial Delegation and the Valencian Community have roads like Swiss cheese and have not yet lifted a finger. This means that many localities will be isolated by land for months” explain government sources.
Condition of one of the main roads of Paiporta, this Friday, November 1st. Photograph taken with the Leica SL3.
To date, the army has deployed 1,200 soldiers and Defense has promised 500 additional people to open the roads and organize food distribution. In Paiporta, which, let us remember, is still an authentic open-air swimming pool with dams two kilometers away, the soldiers are currently doing more than organization and of logistics it “helps,” according to neighbors. The firefighters, relegated to the background, They keep removing the bodies under the rubble of the houses.
What is reflected in Integrated Coordination Center, where the loss figures continue to pile up. When going to press the death toll reached the 207 in the Valencian Communitywith three other deaths in Castile-La Mancha and Andalusia. But the DANA He has not yet released his power. The rest of the cities remain on alert, waiting for the storm. While those affected long to receive help and, above all, to wake up from this nightmare.
