The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaskasaid this Friday night, regarding the number of victims caused by the dana, that “it is reasonable to think that we are going to have more deaths” and he added that “the figures of 1,900 missing persons have not been shuffled”.
This was stated by the Minister of the Interior in declarations to the program Hora 25 of Cadena SER and to Informativos Telecinco, in which he detailed that “the update is that there are 207 accredited victims. It is impossible to know the number of missing persons and it would be unwise for me to give a figure.”
“The figures of 1,900 missing persons have not been shuffled, those are the calls received by 112 saying that they cannot find their relatives, but that is mostly due to communication failures. Moreover, the people who finally find their relatives do not report it, so we cannot make such predictions. Assessments in that sense would lead us to error and would not generate confidence,” explained Grande-Marlaska.
The Interior Minister added: “It is reasonable to think that we will have more deaths. I don’t like to talk about probable numbers. There are very few areas, almost anecdotal, where some kind of competent authority has not arrived to practice rescue work.”
On the speed of the deployment of the armed forces, Grande-Marlaska has stressed that the army has been deployed from the first day and made available to the autonomous community, which is “the one that has the competences”.
“We have offered all available means that the CAAC requires. That is our role“, he added.
Asked about the possibility of declaring a state of alarm, Grande-Marlaska said: “Our main function is to be driving the situation with them. This is a very important emergency. The number of victims qualifies it as such. In our country there has never been a level 3 emergency, it has always been at most a level 2 emergency. In the event that the community understands that this is not enough, it could ask the State to take over the management”.
The Minister assures that the Government is “making all the means available”. for whatever the autonomous community requires. If it considers that it cannot assume the situation, it can make this known so that the central State can assume the situation”.
Regarding the robberies and looting that occur, Grande-Marlaska has expressed his concern, but assures that they have “increased security, especially in commercial areas”.
“What I am concerned about – he added – are the values of a society that acts like this at this time.