The cleaning and drainage work was intensified yesterday at ground zero of the DANA thanks to the arrival of several army units, among which was a group of sappers, military machinery to make way in areas of difficult access, and several detachments. of the Legion, one of the most committed and efficient, as well as a tactical subgroup that, together with the firefighters, set up an advanced command post on the outskirts of Alfafar. However, whenever one sees progress, the efforts of good people to rebuild their homes and regain at least an iota of happiness, one comes across a garage or a parking lot, doors to the underworld, because death lives there. They are dark places where there are victims. The problem is that the bilge pumps are either small or end up being usurped in the middle of the night, hours of robberies and criminals. The neighbors and security employees work 24-hour shifts so that none of them are left unprotected and, when boredom monopolizes the scene, they use their radios to narrate the match that never was, that Valencia – Real Madrid that should have been played last Saturday. Of course, the locals won 3-0. In any case, there is no way to know what the Police and Army divers will find when they manage to access the underground, but many citizens are clear. “There it smells like death that pulls us back.” After several days of uncontrolled access (and even looting), Bonaire was a bunker on Sunday morning. Agents of the National Police ensured that only business owners who urgently needed to remove merchandise accessed the interior of the premises: the Military Emergency Unit (UME) needed the free area to begin entering the underground parking lot, which, with capacity for 1,800 vehicles , is expected to be one of the black spots of the catastrophe. Fortunately, the workers in the area say, it was raining and the shopping center was not as full as any weekend. Standard Related News Yes Divers in Kayak and a special drone: this is how the Police and UME work to bail out the water in the Bonaire parking lot José Luis Fernández Divers with a kayak and a special drone for small spaces inspect among the cars submerged by the floods with fear of finding bodies Sources of the operation, in which about 50 people participate, explained in the morning that there was still a meter and half of water from the four that completely flooded the underground, which has several entrances. That is when the first divers and kayaks from the UME began to enter to carry out reconnaissance work on a mousetrap in which they do not even have estimates of how many vehicles they can find. Around noon, in the vicinity of the parking lot, the movement of tow trucks, EMU vehicles and members of the force transporting kayaks was constant. They were accompanied by civil guards, firefighters and national police. Several Red Cross vehicles also entered the premises. Monitoring the operation from the sky, a drone flew over the remains of the devastated shopping center. A display (along with the cameras, of course) that also attracted some curious people to the area. «My daughter worked here and had to take shelter on the first floor. Today is the first day that they have taken it seriously,” laments one of the residents of Aldaia, the municipality to which Bonaire belongs. Related News standard No The President of the Government points to “violent marginal elements” after the incidents Mariano Alonso Sánchez assures that “the main objective” is to “save lives” and “recover bodies.” By mid-afternoon, however, there were hardly any kayaks left in the area. Several fire teams, however, continued to incorporate up to a third pump to bail out water faster. The technicians who operate in the area estimate that it will still be a long night in Bonaire. Another of the buildings that has generated the most tension is the MN4 shopping center, located south of Sedaví. Its large structure and dozens of leisure and service venues are on a two-story parking lot, which has more square meters than the Mestalla stadium, with hundreds of spaces that have been impossible to reach. The great fear of the authorities is that, in addition to the people who may have been trapped in their car, there may be bodies of citizens who were absorbed, since the large entrances to the parking lot generated a funnel effect that engulfed everything within its reach. scope. Firefighters have estimated that there are 80 million liters of water down there. Antonio Martí, head of MN4, prefers to maintain a hopeful stance. The notice from a nearby business, whose owner is a friend of Martí, allowed the shopping center to be evacuated quite efficiently, so much so that none of the employees suffered any serious mishap. «There were quite a few people on Tuesday. We evacuated five minutes before the famous alarm came and we even had to cut the movies in half,” he says. In addition, customers who could not leave the building in time, about 300, took shelter on the second floor, away from the flood, and were able to spend the night in the movie theaters. «They were 15 meters above the water, they had food and a warm place to sleep, which is no small thing. The problem is the rest of the shopping center, it is destroyed. “I can’t go into the supermarket because it’s like a horror movie,” says Martí. The problem is that, beneath that heroism, there was a hell. “What we hope is not to find anyone in the parking lot, but we know that would be a miracle,” he admits before a powerful army bailer arrives. “That really sucks!” acknowledged one of Martí’s employees, who shortly after collapsed emotionally, out of sadness and hope, because he received a visit that he did not count on, a great altruistic gesture that, however, He prefers to keep it private.
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