Latest news After the flood: search for missing persons in Spain

After the devastating storms in the south and east of Spain with at least 95 deaths, many people are still missing despite numerous rescues. Defense Minister Margarita Robles declared the search for them to be the priority of the day, as she told the TV station Telecinco.

The minister did not give a number, but according to the media, dozens of people are believed to be missing. The focus is now shifting to the question of whether the authorities did not warn of the danger early enough. The full extent of the damage was still unclear on Thursday afternoon.

The minister said that nothing was known about the fate of "many" people. In the particularly hard-hit Mediterranean region of Valencia, where 92 of the 95 people confirmed dead so far have been found, the military is now to carry out targeted searches for people in need in the towns of Paiporta and Masanasa.

At the same time, Robles refused to take part in the debate that has broken out in Spain about failures to warn of these devastating storms. "Everyone knows what they did well and what they did badly," she said, referring to a dispute between Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and the head of government of the Valencia region, Carlos Mazón. Both accuse each other of being responsible for the warning system.

Newspaper: University sent students home

In fact, civil defense warnings were sent to the cell phones of everyone in the Valencia region at around 8.10 p.m. on Tuesday, according to the state radio station RTVE. However, the newspaper "El País" noted that it had already started raining hours earlier and went on to write that the weather service Aemet had already declared the highest warning level, which means very high danger, at around 7.30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

However, the civil defense warnings were not issued until the evening, when the first rivers had already burst their banks. Despite the storms, many people were out and about in their cars, running the risk of being stranded or swept away by the current. The large Ford factory in Almussafes and the University of València had already sent their staff home, as the newspaper wrote.

A year's worth of rain in one day

Other regions on the Mediterranean that are popular with tourists, such as Andalusia and Murcia as well as Castilla-La Mancha in the interior of the country, were also hit hard by the heavy rainfall on Tuesday. Within a few hours, the extreme rainfall had turned numerous rivers into torrents and roads into rivers, destroying houses and sweeping away trees, people and vehicles. The weather service Aemet spoke of a "historic storm", the worst of its kind in the Valencia region, where the most deaths were recorded.

In some places, as much rain fell in one day as normally falls in a year - up to 400 liters per square meter in some places in the Valencia region, according to Aemet. People, cars and trees, as well as infrastructure, were swept away in the floods. There was great devastation in many places.

The storms in Spain were triggered by the "cold drop" (gota fría) weather phenomenon. It occurs frequently in the Spanish Mediterranean region in the months of September and October and is based on strongly fluctuating sea and air temperatures. The phenomenon occurs when the first Atlantic lows with cold, damp air move over the warm Mediterranean. The central government in Madrid declared three days of national mourning from Thursday. It also assured those affected of rapid help with reconstruction.

SDA