At three in the afternoon this Saturday on the beach of El Saler it was a “weather of failures”, that Valencian expression that defines the days of clear skies, a pleasant twenty-something degrees of temperature and a soft and refreshing breeze that comes from the sea so typical of spring and autumn in this land. Sitting on the shore, three Britons, two women and a man in their sixties, watched the beating of the waves in a scene that could pass as bucolic if it were not for the reeds and various objects dragged by the sea to the shore. That and because a hundred meters away a judicial procession was proceeding to remove a corpse.
It is one of several bodies that the sea is returning to the coast, after having been dragged there by the flood. Although the authorities are not specifying the number of remains found in these circumstances, since Thursday the Civil Guard has been using helicopters and drones to search the section from the mouth of the Turia River in Valencia to the Brosquil beach in Cullera, close to the place where the Júcar is going to die at sea. An operation that also extends to the Albufera, since we must not forget that it is in this freshwater lake south of Valencia where the Poyo ravine, which caused most of the damage, empties.
The first of the bodies appeared on Thursday on the Mareny Blau beach, in Sueca. This time it was some neighbors who were walking through the area who found the lifeless body of a woman in the middle of a mountain of reeds. They notified the Local Police of Sueca and the Civil Guard, which from that moment on began the search operation for other possible bodies in the area. A canine unit specialized in finding human remains was also moved to the site and searched unsuccessfully among the remains of plants returned by the sea.
Before the El Saler uprising, witnessed by ABC, the Civil Guard had also collected another body on the beach of Pinedo, a district south of the city of Valencia, which was evacuated on Tuesday due to the danger that the new channel of the Turia would overflow. In this case it was also the neighbors who gave the warning signal. Not so in El Saler, which as this newspaper has learned had been detected, while floating in the sea, by the Civil Guard helicopter, which monitored it until it was thrown onto the beach by the waves. Sources close to the emergency device assure that these have not been the only cases.
“Logically, the bodies of Pinedo and El Saler could come from the Turia river and the Sueca del Júcar river, although it can never be stated with certainty until they are identified because the sea currents could have moved them many kilometers,” explains an expert. to this newspaper. In that sense, it is worth remembering that the cause of the flooding in Utiel and the La Ribera region is the Magro River, a tributary of the Júcar. On the other hand, although there were fears of the Turia overflowing upon its arrival in Valencia, no damage was caused along its upper channel and there is no record of missing persons in that area.
«Where it can be more complex to locate is in the Albufera, as it is a lake the waves are much gentler and, in addition, most of the banks are marsh areas, with many aquatic plants and reeds that can trap fish. bodies for days and make it difficult to locate them from the air,” the expert explains to ABC. A circumstance that increases the uncertainty of the search, since most of the missing people are concentrated in the area between Chiva and the towns of L’Horta Sud, through which the Poyo ravine runs.
A channel that is practically dry for most of its journey, since it is what in the Mediterranean area is called a rambla, a seasonal watercourse that only runs in the seasons with more rain. This means that they are filled with weeds and mud that, in moments of flooding like this week’s, turn the channel into a deadly cocktail of water, mud and reeds capable of tearing its occupants from vehicles and dragging any object to the ground. the sea, as has been the case with the bodies found on the beaches.
Identification protocol
The force of the river is such that the bodies rescued from the sea are usually practically naked and without documentation, which makes their identification difficult. In these cases, if the relatives have reported the disappearance and the ‘ante mortem’ protocol has been applied, identification can be made through the physical description provided, which also includes indicative marks such as tattoos, scars, piercings. When there is a suspicion of the identity, the victim’s fingerprints are compared with those of the possible match.
In any case, DNA identification will also be carried out. Genetic samples have been requested from all relatives who have filed a missing person report in order to, if necessary, carry out a complete identification of the body that appeared. In any case, the identifications are turning out to be very complex. The last data offered by the authorities, on Saturday morning, spoke of 162 autopsies carried out and only 39 bodies identified. At the moment, all of them are resting in refrigerated trucks at the Valencia Trade Fair until they are delivered to their families.
#sea #begins #return #bodies #swept #DANA #waterspout #Valencia
