Death toll rises to 205 due to torrential rains in Spain

Madrid. The latest balance of the tragic consequences of the torrential rains in Spain is devastating: the death toll rises to 205, the majority -202- in the Valencian Community, although the most alarming thing is the number of those missing, which until now was unknown or its calculation was impossible to do due to the general chaos. The Ministry of the Interior estimates that there are more than 1,900 people whose whereabouts are unknown, which means that they are incommunicado or that, in the worst case scenario, they are buried under the thousands of tons of mud that have destroyed towns, houses, buildings, roads and places in the region.

The worst natural disaster in the recent history of Spain is increasing popular indignation against those responsible for public administrations, even more so when most of the support and aid that the victims have received has been from their own neighbors, who have brought them water , food or basic medical supplies, while State tools still do not appear in a large part of the affected area. Above all, they demand the immediate deployment of the Spanish Army, which of its more than one hundred thousand troops has only mobilized 1,700, since the Spanish Executive, led by socialist Pedro Sánchez, has not yet decreed a “state of alarm” to activate without delay all the tools of the State.

Carlos, a resident of the town of Paiporta, one of the most affected and where it is estimated that the death toll is more than a hundred, denounced: “I do not understand that when there is an earthquake in Turkey, for example, we send firefighters and to the Army the next day, and here the Army is no longer distributing food, helping to remove mud and throwing water at us from so many helicopters and small planes that there are in Spain to be able to do it.” This feeling of helplessness has been spreading in recent days, especially as the hours and days pass, and the victims most affected, that is, the neighbors who continue to watch over their dead in the street, waiting for them to come and lift them. the body report, or the relatives of the missing, are still waiting for some kind of help.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of volunteers continue to bring the most basic supplies to the towns most affected by DANA and do so on foot from surrounding towns or by bicycle or with any means of transportation capable of overcoming the barriers caused by the natural disaster, which also It has destroyed roads, streets and rural access roads to the most damaged localities. But even so, citizens continue to be mobilized and the wave of solidarity has spread under the motto that “the people only save the people.”

Although since last night the main concern has been the missing and incommunicado people, either because they are trapped somewhere due to rising water and the accumulation of mud, or because of the absence of electricity and the damage to the roads access to their locations have prevented us from knowing if they are safe and sound. And the Ministry of the Interior, chaired by the socialist Fernando Grande-Marlaska, reported what until now was the great unknown, how many people are in that situation. And the data is devastating: the provisional figure is 1,900 missing, according to the minutes of the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi). This means that the tragedy could be even much worse than what is known so far. But in addition, up to 70 bodies have been rescued pending identification and another 17 that have already been named.

Given the increase in popular indignation due to the lack of response from the State, the Minister of Defense, the socialist Margarita Robles, announced the transfer of a thousand more Army troops to the area, which will add to the thousand in the next few hours. 700 already deployed. Furthermore, the French Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, reported that he had offered humanitarian aid and the immediate dispatch of up to 250 firefighters, but that the Spanish Minister of the Interior responded: “I am very grateful to you but for now it is not necessary, because we are In a first phase in which we are still organizing, we have our own means and we have mobilized the Spanish Army as well.” Other countries have also offered material and humanitarian aid, but so far no foreign deployment has been seen in the area of ​​the tragedy.