The death toll from the floods rises to 211 and they carry out the largest deployment of troops in the history of Spain

The DANA in Valencia It keeps all of Spain in suspense. For this reason, the Government doubled the number of civil guards and police: in the last hours, another 5,000 soldiers were deployed more to the area affected by the floods. This Saturday morning, the death toll rose to 211.

“We are talking about the largest deployment of members of the forces and security bodies of the State of the Armed Forces that has ever been done in our country in times of peace,” said Pedro Sánchez, and explained that so far more than 30,000 people have been rescued from flooded homes and roads. flooded roads and industrial estates.

According to what he said, the Government will approve in the Council of Ministers next Tuesday the declaration of a seriously affected area, due to a civil protection emergency, for those places that have been hardest hit by the storm: areas of the Valencian Community, Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia, Catalonia and Aragon, all of them in the east or southeast of the country.

today 4,000 additional troops will arrive in the province of Valencia of the military units (there are more than 2,500 soldiers already in the area) and first thing this Sunday the remaining 1,000 soldiers will arrive.

In addition, an amphibious Navy ship has been ordered to deploy, with operating rooms and a fleet of support vehicles that will arrive at the port of Valencia in the next few hours.

Sánchez, who described this event as the “largest natural disaster in the recent history” of Spain and “the second flood that has claimed the most victims in Europe so far this century,” raised the number of deaths to 211 in a conference of press this Saturday. The vast majority of those affected are in the Valencia region, in the east of the country.

The government warns that the toll of victims will increase, since the number of missing people remains high, especially because there are still bodies trapped among the mountains of cars that are piled up on roads or in parking lots.

Tuesday’s storms dumped in a few hours an amount of water equivalent to what falls in a year. The floods destroyed bridges, swept away houses and swept away hundreds of vehicles, which now make it difficult for emergency services to travel.

Faced with the growing desperation of the population, who continue to search for their loved ones, or demand water and food, Sánchez admitted to being “aware that the response that is being given is not enough.”

“I know that there are problems and severe shortcomings, that there are still collapsed services, municipalities buried by mud,” said Sánchez, who nevertheless sent a message of hope and asked Spaniards to write “one more chapter in the history of overcoming and resistance that is the history of our nation.”

The president of the government guaranteed that the government “is ready” to send the authorities the resources it requests, while announcing that Spain has already begun “the procedures to request help from the European solidarity fund.”

In the towns of Alfafar and Sedaví, in the metropolitan area of ​​Valencia, residents continued this Saturday shoveling mud out of their houses, many of them soaked in sweat under an atypical sun for European November, according to the AFP agency.

Still without the presence of the army in those areas, firefighters are trying to extract water from garages and tunnels in search of victims.

The displays of solidarity continue this Saturday, particularly in Valencia, where thousands of people are trying for the second consecutive day to go on foot to the neighboring affected towns, equipped with shovels and brooms.

“Yesterday (Friday) we brought tons of food and water to the most affected municipalities (…) It is true that all the neighbors who are affected are demanding more help,” the vice president of the Valencia region told reporters. Susana Camarero, given the growing frustration of the victims. “It is logical that they demand more help, but there has not been a lack of help,” he said.

The Valencia government decreed restrictions on the movement of individuals through the affected areas during the weekend, to prevent them from hindering the work of the rescue teams.