Those close to Juan, Manuel, Mónica, Jonathan and Antonia are preparing for the worst news. Are the five residents of Letur who dig in the mud and who have disappeared since Tuesday, when a violent flood caused by a flood devastated the old town of this municipality of Albacete. Dolores, 92, was the sixth person not located and her body was found on Wednesday one kilometer from the urban center, near the wastewater treatment plant.
In anticipation of any need, the Red Cross deployed 80 portable beds in several rooms at the Virgen de la Asunción public school. Its facilities became the forward command post, an accommodation and supply area, and an improvised press room for journalists.
Its staff is dedicated to the relatives of the five missing people and those involved in search tasks. In total, around thirty people passed through the hands of Guadalupe Rubio, psychologist and head of the psychosocial intervention team who works in Letur. They took care of the young couple’s two minor children; to the parents of Antonia, a septuagenarian who lived in a mill, and to municipal employees Juan and Manolo; and also some of the people rescued.
The Virgen de la Asunción public school became a forward command post, home and supply zone.
“Often we think that children will forget the situation, that they will adapt quickly to what happened, but They will be affected just as much as adults.” explains Guadalupe when asked about Jonathan and Mónica’s children, a teenager and an eight-year-old girl, who were initially assisted separately. About these first moments, the psychologist describes: “We can face a ‘shock’, as if it were not reality and without being aware of what is happening.”
Jonathan and Mónica’s children are with their maternal grandmother, a resident of the municipality, and they spend their time with friends from high school and school. “After the first contact, we begin to put our feet on the ground and reconnect with their reality, so that the emotional ventilation begins,” explains Guadalupe, sitting next to a classroom transformed into a rest area for the staff involved. . There are twelve portable beds, occupied by soldiers, and the hanging pieces of paper bearing a date, October 29, 2024, are striking, a tragic day for Letur.
The relatives of the five missing people know that they have a psychological support team from the Red Cross. “When they need us, they can call us at any time; and when this is not the case, we are attentive and we track down,” he insists.
It is important to find the body of a loved one. “Each funeral ritual is linked to an adaptation of mourning in a standardized way. The fact that a body does not appear makes pain management very difficult,” says Guadalupe, who remembers the Covid pandemic and how many people were unable to say goodbye to their loved ones.
Thank you letter from a person rescued on Tuesday
A few minutes later, this psychologist read the handwritten letter of gratitude from a person rescued Tuesday that his family had left at the forward command post. “Receive a very big hug for everyone and lots of encouragement. Thank you for the helicopter rescue and everything you did for me“, we read in the letter from Ángel Luis, which circulated among the 200 members of the operation and which was accompanied by a bag containing new clothes for the victims. An example of the current of solidarity taking place in Letur.
