Spain sends 10,000 more soldiers and police to tackle historic floods

The Spanish government will deploy another 5,000 soldiers and 5,000 police officers to assist the flood-wrecked region of Valencia, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Saturday, as the death toll from this week’s natural disaster rose to 211 people.

Citing it as the worst flood in Spain’s history, Sánchez acknowledged that current efforts were insufficient, yet noted this was the nation’s largest-ever military deployment during peacetime.

“It has so far carried out 4,800 rescues and helped more than 30,000 people in their homes, on the roads, and in flooded industrial estates,” he told reporters in Madrid after chairing a meeting of a flood crisis committee.

Sánchez also called for unity, throwing his support behind Valencia’s much-criticized regional authorities. 

“I know there are severe shortages and problems, that there are still collapsed services, municipalities buried in the mud, desperate people searching for their family members,” he said. “But I also know we need to [respond] together, united.”

Residents have decried the response from local officials, which they say was too slow and too late. Notably, the Valencian government did not send out an emergency alert until after 8pm on Tuesday, by which time thousands of people were already trapped.

Opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the head of the People’s Party (PP), repeated the prime minister’s plea for calm on Saturday, despite having attacked the national government earlier in the week. 

“With a catastrophe still incalculable, the government’s priority is to maintain the plenary session only to control TVE,” Feijóo said on Wednesday, referring to parliamentary discussions to reform the state broadcaster. “I have seen many things in politics, but nothing so despicable and inhuman,” he said.