Catalonia sends sniffer dogs and Red Cross psychological support to Valencia

The canine unit of the Catalan police deployed in Valencia will begin to search for possible missing people in the Barranco del Gallo area of the town of Xiva.

On Wednesday evening, authorities traveled with three dogs, Kenzo, Pompeia and Hock, specialized in searching for missing persons.

They participated in a coordination meeting on Thursday with other members of the emergency system led by the Valencia firefighters.

Red Cross psychological support

Meanwhile, the Red Cross sent on Thursday their first contingent of psychological support to those affected by the floods. In total there are ten people including psychologists, specialized rescuers and social workers.

The entity's regional head of psycho-social care in Catalonia, Jordi Martori, explained to the Catalan News Agency that they will not attend to the relatives of the victims, but will travel with the cleaning teams and support citizens who need it, but also to the Red Cross volunteers themselves.

"People have a very high emotional burden," explains Martori. He adds that there is still a lack of workers available to go to Valencia.

Two new teams of five people each will leave from Girona in the next few days and will replace the teams who have been there for five days already.

The groups travelling are all volunteers, many of whom have full time jobs outside of these tasks.

This Thursday the pre-alert for possible storms in Catalonia has been withdrawn, something that had been a barrier up to this point to getting teams to go to Valencia, in case they were needed in Catalonia.

The volunteers who go generally all return "shocked" by what they see, Martori says. Despite the fact that they are trained to assist in "complex" situations, the situation "affects them quite a bit" emotionally.

For this reason, the Red Cross monitors the volunteers to ensure that they recover in the days following their return from Valencia.

€816 million in damages to farms

A Valencian farmers union estimates that the losses due to the floods will reach €816 million in structural damage and in damage to crops.

The entity calculates that there may be up to 172,000 hectares of infrastructure affected to greater or lesser extents, and €500 million in structural damages done.

It's calculated that around 50,000 hectares of crops and farms have been damaged, with losses of up to €300 million.

The most damaged crops are citrus fruits and persimmons, as well as vegetables and vines.

The Agricultural and Livestock Union of the Valencian Country emphasize that these figures are only an initial estimate.