BARCELONA, Spain — A Spanish research vessel that investigates marine ecosystems has been abruptly diverted from its usual task to take on a new job: Helping in the increasingly desperate search for the missing from Spain’s floods.
He boarded the Ramón Margalef in Alicante, located on Spain’s south coast, from where it will set sail to reach Valencia’s waters before dawn Saturday.
The boat also helped research the impact from the lava flow that reached the sea from the 2021 La Palma volcano eruption in Spain’s Canary Islands.
Finding a body at sea, Carrera said, is highly unlikely.
Those findings will contribute to initiatives by other Spanish research centers to study Spain’s deadliest floods of the century.
BARCELONA, Spain— A Spanish research vessel that studies marine ecosystems has been abruptly redirected from its regular mission to assist in the increasingly urgent search for people who have gone missing due to Spain’s floods.
In an effort to find the cars that were washed into the Mediterranean Sea by last week’s devastating floods, the 24 crew members of the Ramón Margalef were getting ready on Friday to map a 36 square kilometer offshore area using its sensors and submersible robot. That area is the size of more than 5,000 soccer fields.
Body recovery is hoped to be possible with a map of sunken vehicles. In addition to the more than 200 people who have been pronounced dead, authorities acknowledge that there are probably several more unaccounted for, with nearly 100 people officially listed as missing.
According to Pablo Carrera, the mission’s lead marine biologist, his team should be able to provide important information to law enforcement and emergency services in ten days. He claimed that it would be nearly impossible for police to conduct a methodical and successful recovery operation to get to cars that ended up on the seabed without a map.
Carrera told The Associated Press over the phone that it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
When the October flooding struck like a tsunami, many cars turned into death traps. 29.
The boat will be a part of a larger police and military search for bodies and missing people that has been extended beyond the streets and towns that have been devastated. While sniffer dogs looked for scent traces of bodies buried in fields and canal banks, searchers used poles to dig into layers of mud. They are also examining the coastline’s beaches.
The seashore off the Albufera wetlands, where at least some of the water ended up after tearing through villages and the southern outskirts of Valencia city, is the first location the Ramón Margalef is looking for.
The Spanish Institute of Oceanography, a government-funded research center under the auspices of the Spanish National Research Council, is led by 60-year-old Carrera as its fleet leader.
In Alicante, on the south coast of Spain, he boarded the Ramón Margalef, which will sail to Valencia’s waters before sunrise on Saturday. With 14 sailors and 10 scientists and technicians working in shifts around the clock, the plan is to start work immediately. The boat also contributed to the study of the effects of the lava flow that reached the sea from the La Palma volcano eruption in the Canary Islands of Spain in 2021.
According to Carrera, it is extremely unlikely to find a body at sea. Therefore, big things that shouldn’t be there are the main focus.
In an effort to detect automobiles, the boat’s camera-equipped submersible robot can descend as far as 60 meters. Ideally, they will look for license plates, but visibility may be very poor and the vehicles may be crushed or buried in the mud, Carrera stated.
Longer term, he said, his team will also assess how the marine ecosystem is affected by flood runoff.
Other Spanish research centers’ efforts to investigate Spain’s deadliest floods of the century will benefit from those findings.
Occasionally, autumn storms cause deadly floods, which are common in Spain. However, scientists say that these floods were made worse by the country’s two-year drought and record-breaking heat.
The Valencian town of Turis received 30.4 inches of rain in a single hour, setting a new national record, according to Spain’s meteorological agency.
Carrera stated, “We have never witnessed an autumn storm of this magnitude.”. Since we cannot stop climate change, we must get ready for its consequences. “.”.
