Margarita Robles appalled after visiting areas worst affected by flooding

Ministerio de DefensaMargarita Robles said she was appalled at the destruction caused after flying over the municipalities of Dolores, Almoradí and Rojales, which were among the worst affected.

Margarita Robles praised the huge effort being made by the servicemen and observed that "when the Emergency Military Unit (Spanish acronym: UME) arrives, people are calmed by their presence". "I believe that the whole of Spain closely identifies with the Armed Forces, and so my heartfelt thanks to you, and we hope you are as proud as we are of you", she said to the Armed Forces upon her arrival in Orihuela, where she visited the command post of the Tactical Group set up in the town to coordinate the emergency services in the province of Alicante.

The acting minister, accompanied by the Under-Secretary for Defence, Alejo de la Torre, was received by the President of the Regional Government of Valencia, Ximo Puig, and the assistant government delegate in Alicante, Araceli Pobaldor. Ximo Puig thanked her for visiting and the work being carried out by the servicemen and the UME, who "were here from the outset, and have done a great job of rescuing people and saving lives, and the whole Region of Valencia has nothing but words of gratitude to them, and also for their work in fighting the fires".

Ministerio de DefensaXimo Puig and Margarita Robles also praised the excellent joint work of the different law enforcement agencies, firemen, local authorities and State authorities. "Coordination between different authorities is working wonderfully well, as it should: in the country everyone should unite in situations like these", claimed the acting minister, who also pointed to the absolute disposition of the Ministry of Defence to "continue contributing with available resources for as long as needs be".

Subsequently, Margarita Robles travelled to Los Alcázares (Murcia), where she was received by the government delegate, Francisco Javier Jiménez. In Murcia, in addition to the UME, the Levante Unit of the Navy, the Zaragoza Regiment with the 3rd Paratrooper Colours, on behalf of the Army, and the Alcantarilla Squadron of Paratrooper Sappers from the Air Force have also been working.

There are presently 1,314 servicemen from the Armed Forces deployed to help those affected, 972 members of the UME, 202 from the Army, 60 from the Navy and 80 from the Air Force, in addition to vehicles, trucks, ships, drones and helicopters.

To date, the latest figure of people rescued by the Armed Forces amounts to 710, of which 550 were in Vega Baja (Alicante): 480 by land and in vessels, 70 evacuated by helicopter and 160 in the province of Murcia.

Collaboration from military engineers

Ministerio de DefensaWhen there is such large-scale flooding, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Sappers contribute highly valuable capacities to contain the flooding, re-establish critical infrastructures and drain flooded areas. Hydraulic techniques fall within their sphere of competence, which allows them to study, plan and implement operations to extract, drain, transport and distribute water in the most suitable fashion. To achieve this, they have, among other resources, large capacity drainage pumps, such as the SIGEFLU, a modular system that allows 17,000 litres of water to be pumped per minute to an area four or five kilometres away through standard pumps, or 50,000 litres per minute to one kilometre away with parallel pumps, or by Water and Slurry Pumping Equipment (Spanish acronym: EMBAL) with a pumping capacity of 320 m3/h.

In addition, engineering equipment plays an important role in the construction of barriers and contention walls and to repair breaches, as well as the repair and re-establishment of communication channels. To achieve this, the tactical group of the UME in Murcia has engineers available from the Army Corps, Navy and Air Force Sappers.

In Alicante, the work is focused on the repair of critical points, such as the health centre in Callosa, support for the people of Molina and Bigastro and the drainage of roads and basements in Almoradi, Rojales and Dolores by pumper trucks and large capacity extraction motor pumps.

Non official translation