The search for missing persons by DANA continues to be the main task of the rescue teams and the Civil Guard. This Tuesday morning, Captain Sergio Hernández, coordinator of the underwater operations unit of the Civil Guard in the Albufera (Valencia), has attended the media to explain how the work is being carried out.
Mainly, the captain points out that the rescue teams are ruling out areas in two ways: “First we are making sure that there are no victims in the garages. “Then, we are moving more and more resources to this part of the Albufera and open areas, where the search systems and the way to reach the places where we have signs of missing people are very different.”
Regarding these differences, Hernández explains that they mainly correspond to the use of boats with divers They travel through the areas, supported by drones and dogs. «When a point is located where there could possibly be a missing person, that is when the divers enter the water to rule out the area. It is important to be 100% sure that there are no missing people in an area before ruling it out,” says Hernández.
In order not to leave a corner uncovered, the teams are divided into drone-supported gridswhich provide all the information about the area from above, and then it is the boats that cover that terrain over the water itself.
Black waters full of diseases
The captain details that the greatest difficulty right now is the poor visibility “The water is completely black, so our divers have to do the inspections by touch and we have to be very fast because this water, as you know, is a nest of infections and other diseases. In these moments, 12 divers comb the Albufera area along with drone and dog specialists. “In another part of the affected areas we have another 12 divers distributed in different locations.”
For the moment Hernández assures that have found “victims in the waters of the Albufera”, although they cannot provide figures. «It is thanks to the field work of these units that are permanently deployed on the ground and Citizen Security, Rock Teams… that They are our eyes on the ground “and they are making it easier for us to reach the sites and have the ease of ruling out areas.”
Regarding how long the search in the Albufera could last, he comments that is “unpredictable”»: «We depend on a context that is uncontrollable. In the end, what we are clear about is that we are going to be here until we manage to discard every inch of the land,” concludes the captain.
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