The ship Galicia has been moored since Monday in the port of Valencia and its 160 meters long is home to 500 soldiers. In the coming days there will be 800, as they will welcome many soldiers who are already in the zero zone of devastation by the DANA of Valencia. Troops from the Army, Air Force and Navy will leave the ship each day to carry out rescue, logistics and debris removal tasks in the most damaged areas.
They go out in the morning. For now, this is where the Military Emergency Unit (EMU) needs it most. They return at night, around nine o’clock, full of mud, after 12 hours of clearing out, opening paths and cleaning the streets. It is precisely at this time that more activities await at the hospital on board: “The most common cases we will see will be divers suffering from conjunctivitis, fractures or infected wounds”, explains the nurse captain. Mud carries bacteria and infections are common. In addition to two operating rooms, Galicia has 8 intensive care beds.
On the ground floor of the ship, thousands of packages wait on pallets: “Individual combat rations, food,” read the signs. They are intended for soldiers who do not eat on board and for the population. “Well, I ate it and it’s pretty good,” laughs José María Cordero, a ship’s ensign, who arrived from Cádiz while sailing, pointing to the gigantic ramp from which the trucks depart. How long will they last? “Until it’s necessary,” he replies.
The tragedy hits pilot Luis Nebot more closely. He is from Castelló and is now on the Galicia bridge, where the sun sets and you can see a quiet European city, an orderly port. At this distance, you might feel like you’ve performed a standard maneuver. But during the reconnaissance round he carried out a few hours ago, a few kilometers from here, he saw something hellish: “What I saw was shocking. It’s true that we have already been able to see aerial images from drones or on television, but seeing it with our eyes is very impressive. » All his life, he was deployed in Somalia or the Gulf of Guinea: “But I have not experienced anything like this, I have not seen anything like this, not even in conflict zones without resources. »
He and another colleague went to distribute all the water that the two helicopters could hold. In Alginet and Almussafes. Then they recognized the area in which they would work the next day, passing through Chiva and Cheste: “You see high areas, where you don’t see that anything happened and immediately, a ravine further on , it’s mud, collapsed. cars, fields full of cars and debris of all kinds…” Her companion, who is not currently on board, is originally from Torrent and lives in Silla: “My sister-in-law’s family lives in Real , which is without electricity or water… I really wanted to come and help,” he said.
Next to the deck are elliptical machines and treadmills. The soldiers train and do push-ups while one, on a video call with his young son, repeats and consoles him: “Does your throat hurt? “Oh yeah?” Some marines chat from the deck in this dead time while waiting to leave in the morning, others discuss: “We really wanted to come, we are happy and eager to help,” says one of them. This is one of the most popular expressions among Marines who work on the ship.
The ship’s commander, Captain Antonio Estevan, confirms that he did not carry out such a mission either: “What we have seen these days is reminiscent of a war zone, it is natural devastation , it’s very sad. » As they have just arrived, “we are still blind, it is the UME which tells us where to go, but our mission is also to welcome. Fifty divers will live here, eighty rescue experts… we will reach up to 800 soldiers. Here they will sleep, we will feed them and wash their clothes.
The Galicia ship, which was also a victim of Hurricane Mitch, the Prestige disaster and the Indonesian tsunami, occupies an entire quay in the port of Valencia, where truck traffic reigns: closed roads, lost goods and traffic jams. Constant traffic at the entrances and exits of Valencia has generated logistics, supply and distribution problems. “It’s the first time on a boat like this, right?” jokes an officer in response to the civilians’ difficulties in taking the stairs with small steps and surprised faces. On the deck nautical charts are displayed and the references and data are taken by hand.
They have been in port for less than 12 hours, their companions are about to return and there are only a few left for others to go on missions. Those who do not have a specific task at Ground Zero – it is also a logistical ship – are also impatient to disembark, to do what they can, like the thousands of Valencian volunteers who came spontaneously and whom they saw at television and which excited him: “I’ll go in uniform or something, I have to go, even if it’s just to hug them.”
