VALENCIA (AFP) – Spain is deploying 10,000 more troops and police officers to the eastern Valencia region devastated by historic floods that have killed 213 people, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.
Hopes of finding survivors ebbed four days after torrents of muddy water wrecked towns and infrastructure in the European country’s worst such disaster in decades.
Almost all the deaths have been in the Valencia region, where thousands of security and emergency services frantically cleared debris and mud in the search for bodies.
Sanchez said in a televised address that the disaster was the second deadliest flood in Europe this century and announced a huge increase in the security forces dedicated to relief works.
The government had accepted the Valencia region leader’s request for 5,000 more troops and informed him of a further deployment of 5,000 police and civil guards, Sanchez said.
Spain was carrying out its largest deployment of army and security force personnel in peacetime, he added.
Restoring order and distributing aid to destroyed towns and villages – some of which have been cut off from food, water and power since Tuesday’s torrent – is a priority.
Authorities have come under fire over the warning systems before the floods, and some stricken residents have complained the response to the disaster is too slow.
“I am aware the response is not enough, there are problems and severe shortages… towns buried by mud, desperate people searching for their relatives… we have to improve,” Sanchez said.
