The authorities gave for the first time a number of people disappeared by DANA in Valencia. The offices were ante mortem, permitted by the National Police and the Civil Guard in collaboration with forensic doctors, who were counted this Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. 89 active missing persons cases because of DANA and subsequent floods that hit the province of Valencia on October 29, according to figures from the Data Integration Center (CID). A figure which does not correspond to the total number of missing people that the tragedy could have generated, they explain, There may already be cases that have not been reported.
The press release indicates that there are also 62 dead bodies which have not yet been identified out of the 195 on which an autopsy has already been carried out. Likewise, he highlighted that they identified 133 dead. Thus, 89 active cases correspond, they underline in a press release, “exclusively to complaints in which relatives provided different data and provided biological samples allowing the subsequent identification of their relatives”, reported the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV). .
The CID also said it is “important” to note that reports of missing persons with active cases in offices ante mortem “they do not correspond to the total number of missing people that the tragedy could have generated, because there may be cases of disappearance that have not yet been reported. Something that the Minister of Transport himself, Óscar Puente, wanted to clarify because it can lead to confusion. The minister assured that “the number of missing people that has been made public, 89, may not be definitive since there may be missing people whose disappearance has not been reported.”
In any case, the figure, fortunately, is not even close to the high figures speculated,” the minister indicated in a tweet. He also assured that “Adding the number of missing people to the number of dead people to calculate the final death toll is not correct“. “Among the deceased there are still a significant number of unidentified people, so it is possible that some, if not all, of the missing people are among these unidentified people. Therefore, it is not foreseeable that the final death toll will increase significantly from the current number,” he added.
There are 62 unidentified bodies
This was also indicated in the press release of the TSJCV, which assured that “in addition, these 89 active cases of reported disappearances must be related to the number of deceased people on whom the autopsy has already been carried out at the Institute of Medicine Legal (IML) but they are waiting if they are identified, which amounts to 62″.
According to the latest report from the CID, closed at 8 p.m. this Tuesday, the assessments carried out throughout this episode. 195 autopsies of deceased at DANAthe same ones who entered the morgue of the City of Justice of Valencia. Of this total, 133 are fully identified. Of these identifications, 119 were made by fingerprint analysis and the remaining 14 by DNA sample matching.
The data that relatives of missing persons can provide in ante mortem offices to facilitate identification are from photographs, personal and anthropometric journalsmedical history, x-rays or clothing for personal effects, tattoos, dental records, surgical operations performed, use of internal prostheses or pacemakers, among others. For identification by genetic profiling, the greatest reliability lies in biological samples from ancestors and direct descendants, as well as the delivery of personal effects belonging to the missing person such as a toothbrush or razor blade.
