10,000 troops, cops rushed to flood-hit Spanish areas

Spain is sending 5,000 more soldiers and 5,000 more police to the eastern region of Valencia after deadly floods this week that killed at least 211 people, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced Saturday.

Most of the victims of Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory are in Valencia, in the east of the country.

Rescuers were still searching for bodies in stranded cars and sodden buildings on Saturday, four days after the monstrous flash floods that swept away everything in their path in the east of Spain. An unknown number of people remain missing. Thousands of volunteers are helping to clean up the thick mud that is covering everything in streets, houses and businesses in the hardest-hit towns.

At present there are some 2,000 soldiers involved in the emergency work, as well as almost 2,500 Civil Guard gendarmes — who have carried out 4,500 rescues during the floods — and 1,800 national police officers. “It is the biggest operation by the Armed Forces in Spain in peacetime,” Sanchez said. “The government is going to mobilize all the resources necessary as long as they are needed.” The tragedy is already Europe’s worst flood-related disaster since 1967 when at least 500 people died in Portugal.

Hopes of finding survivors were boosted when rescuers found a woman alive after three days trapped in a car park in Montcada, Valencia. Residents burst into applause when civil protection chief Martin Perez announced the news.

Meanwhile, volunteers flocked to Valencia’s City of Arts and Sciences centre for the first coordinated clean-up organised by regional authorities.