New clue of a missing person due to the dana thanks to his geolocation data

This is the conviction of Manuel, one of the three members of this team belonging to the Seprona patrol in Albal (Valencia) and assigned to the search for missing people after the flood, as he stated in an interview with Europa Press. The agent, asked why it is the hardest thing in his day-to-day life, answers: “Finding the bodies.” «We have hopes of finding the missing people. I think so, we will find them,” he said excitedly.

The specialist explained that they had never encountered a similar situation before. «No one had seen anything like it. Anyone who says that is what they had experienced is a lie. Because of the size, because of the number of people affected… 224 deaths are a lot of deaths. Many,” he criticized.

Currently, after 224 fatalities have been recorded, three people remain missing: Jose Javiera man from Pedralba who was with his daughter, a young woman with Down syndrome, whose lifeless body was found; Elizabethdisappeared while driving in her vehicle with her mother near the La Carreta Hotel in Chiva; and Francisthe grandfather who saved his two grandchildren after placing them on the roof of the vehicle when they were caught in the flood in Montserrat.

After the damage was registered, a team was formed in the Civil Guard in charge of organizing the searches for the missing people led by Carlos, captain of the Seprona, and which also included Sergeant Nacho – stationed in the Valencia Command – and the civil guard. Manuel.

With the team in place, the agents began to work on a phase of information analysis, knowledge of the terrain and location of points where the missing people could be found. After this, the necessary resources for the search tasks are delimited: mountain troops, cynological teams or the Military Emergency Unit (UME) itself. «And everyone who is willing to do it starts looking and we don’t stop. We have not stopped until today,” said agent Manuel.

The starting point is always complaints that have been filed by the relatives of the missing persons in which the height of the missing person, weight, characteristics, marks or tattoos, among others, are recorded. Sometimes, the information is incomplete and the Civil Guard contacts the family members directly to request new information.

«There are people who file the complaint with a high level of stress and do not give too many details. We contact them and ask them for information that is very useful for us to find the body and be able to identify it,” he explained.

With complaints, DNA samples are usually taken from relatives and kept on file. Once the bodies are located, samples are also taken and sent the same day to Madrid by helicopter to be analyzed. Normally in a “short period of time” the identity of the person was known, he explained. “We had absolute priority and in less than 24 hours we could already know who it was,” he added.

The majority of missing persons reports come from the same relatives, although there have also been cases of reports from Social Services or Consulates when they involved indigent people.

Location Screen

With the complaints, the agents carry out a screening of the location and it is fixed on a map. «It shows where people have disappeared to determine the river courses or torrents where they may be. We have found three: the Túria, the Poyo ravine and the Júcar, coming from the Magro river,” he noted.

Currently this search team is in a “difficult” moment because there are three missing people and “we put all our resources at their disposal to try to find them,” he stressed. “Any information in this regard is valid for us,” he said, adding that now, after the consultations carried out at the time, they are receiving geolocations with possible locations of victims: “We have another halo of hope in finding them with the new information,” he said. indicated.

These new geolocations have allowed the Civil Guard team to travel to Pedralba this week to search the area and continue the search for one of the missing people.

From the Civil Guard they have received geolocations of the missing people of two types, as explained by the agent: from vehicles and from mobile devices. As for the latter, there is the geolocation of the mobile phone itself when this option is activated or, on the other hand, there is the possibility of obtaining it when the mobile phone connects to telephone antennas spread throughout the territory or area in which it is located.

This geolocation information allows agents to know where the mobile device – and, consequently, the missing person – has been and take a tour until the signal is lost due to the battery or because the mobile has been broken or wet. “With this we can work over time, forwards and backwards,” said the civil guard.

Tracks and steps

With all the information collected – through geolocations or any other means -, when there is a clue, the first thing that is done is to recognize the terrain to see the peculiarities and study the number of troops and personnel necessary to carry out the investigations. tracking tasks.

In the case of Pedralba, andThe land has already been recognized on two previous occasions but the Civil Guard has received new geolocation information and has to study it. Throughout this week the search resources and means necessary for this will be sent. “There are places that we have passed through up to seven or eight times until we were able to find a body,” said agent Manuel.

To organize resources, the Civil Guard works together with the Army. «There is a coordination center to which we send all the information we have. The boss reviews it and is the one who determines who is available to go and reconnoiter the area,” he explained.