Walter Finch
THE first footage of Valencia’s flooded underground car park has come in, showing the aftermath of the storm once the waters had receded.
Authorities had estimated that the facility contained 200 million litres of water, with managing to reduce the depth to just a metre by Monday.
Until then, it was feared that dozens of bodies could be found down there of motorists who had found themselves trapped in their cars as the flash floods filled up the car park in minutes.
But after army and police divers searched the facility on Monday morning, they did not find any bodies, to the relief of everyone.
They inspected overg 50 vehicles in the underground car park, located at the Bonaire shopping centre in Aldaia – flooded out since Tuesday’s Valencia storms.
The parking lot has a 2,500 vehicle capacity and was far from being full on the fateful day, according to the Policia Nacional.
The number of vehicles that might be in the facility has not been made public.
Police spokesperson, Ricardo Gutierrez, said work was carried by out by divers assisted by four drones.
The Emergency Military Force (UME) has been extracting water from the underground car park over the weekend with up to two million litres per hour removed on Sunday.
Two days ago, a boat was deployed but the amount of accumulated water still came above the vehicles, prevented them from effectively searching them.
On Sunday the boat and several kayaks were used along with a 50-strong team of divers and other personnel.
