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Spain’s prime minister orders 5,000 troops to help relieve devastating floods

Posted on by Nargang
Spain’s prime minister orders 5,000 troops to help relieve devastating floods

Spain is sending an additional 5,000 troops to help with relief efforts after The nightmare floods have left at least 211 dead in the eastern, southern and central regions of the country.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced the support on Saturday, adding to what was already the country’s largest peacetime military deployment – for what he called the “terrible tragedy” that it hit the Valencia region the hardest this weekThe Guardian reported.

“There are still dozens of people searching for loved ones and hundreds of households mourning the loss of a relative, friend or neighbor,” Sanchez said in an address broadcast Saturday morning. “I want to express our deepest love to them and assure them that the government of Spain and the entire state, at all its different administrative levels, are with all of them.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Saturday that he would send an additional 5,000 troops to Valencia and neighboring regions devastated by floods. A?
Two women walk through mud and water after flooding in Valencia on November 2, 2024. A?

The Spanish armed forces have so far rescued 4,607 people, Spanish Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Víctor Torres Pérez said Friday, according to CNN.

Sanchez said almost apocalyptic rains and flash floods it was “the worst natural disaster in our country’s recent history” and the second deadliest European flood of the century.

A two-day flood has turned dozens of Spanish streets into cooling rivers, with cars piled up like Matchbox toys on Spain’s east coast.

Sanchez also said that although he had ordered “the largest deployment of armed forces and police personnel that our country has ever seen in peacetime”, some rescuers were having trouble reaching flooded homes and villages isolated.

Volunteers and residents wade through the mud four days after floods swept away everything in their path in Paiporta, on the outskirts of Valencia, Spain. A?
Civil Guard officers search for survivors in cars trapped under the foundations of a building in Paiporta on November 2, 2024. Biel Alino/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
People sweep water from a flooded building in Manasa on November 2, 2024. Kai Forsterling/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

About 5,000 more national police and civil guard officers will be sent to the region, the prime minister said, bringing the total number of police to 10,000, according to the publication.

Forensic specialists and mobile morgues are at the scene to identify flood victims, he added.

“The situation we are living in is tragic and dramatic,” Sanchez said. “I am aware that the answer we have is not enough. I know that… I know that we have to do better and give it our all.”