After the Floods, an Underwater Search for the Missing

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. The 24 crew members aboard the Ramon Margalef were preparing Friday to use its sensors and submergible robot to map an offshore area of about 14 square miles—-the equivalent of more than 5,000 soccer fields—-to see if they can locate vehicles that last week's catastrophic floods swept into the Mediterranean Sea. Many cars became death traps when the tsunami-like flooding hit on Oct. 29. The hope is that a map of sunken vehicles could lead to the recovery of bodies. Nearly a hundred people have been officially declared missing, and authorities admit it's likely there are more people unaccounted for, in addition to the 200-plus declared dead.

Pablo Carrera, the marine biologist leading the mission, estimates that in 10 days his team will be able to hand over useful information to police and emergency services. Without a map, he said it would be practically impossible for police to carry out an effective and systematic recovery operation to reach vehicles that ended up on the seabed. "It would be like finding a needle in a haystack," says Carrera. The boat will join a wider effort by police and soldiers who've expanded their searches for bodies and the missing beyond the devastated towns and streets. Searchers have used poles to probe into layers of mud while sniffer dogs try to find scent traces of bodies buried in canal banks and fields. They're also looking at beaches that line the coast.

The first area the Ramon Margalef is searching is the stretch of sea off the Albufera wetlands, where at least some of the water ended up after ripping through villages and the southern outskirts of Valencia city. The boat's submergible robot loaded with cameras can dive to a depth of nearly 200 feet to attempt to identify cars. Ideally, they'll try to locate license plates, although visibility could be extremely limited and the cars could be smashed to bits or engulfed in the muck, Carrera said. In the longer term, he said his team will also evaluate the impact of the flood runoff on the marine ecosystem. Those findings will contribute to initiatives by other Spanish research centers to study Spain's deadliest floods of the century. More here.

(More Spain stories.)