Victim

Spanish authorities said Thursday they found the body of a 56-year-old man who died after being swept away by floods in the eastern region of Valencia last year, the deadliest such disaster in decades.

DNA analyzes confirmed that the body found on Tuesday in the Turia River belonged to one of the three people reported missing since the tragedy of the October 29 Last year he killed more than 230 people, a Valencia court reported in a statement.

The victim, like the other two missing people, “had already been declared legally dead,” so the death toll did not increase, the court added.

The water had carried the body some 30 kilometers from the city of Pedralba to the municipality of Manises, on the outskirts of the regional capital, Valencia, Spain’s third largest city.

A state funeral will be held in the city next week, on October 29, to mark one year since the disaster, which raised serious questions about the adequacy of warning systems and emergency response.

Activists have taken to the streets every month to demand the resignation of the head of the regional government, Carlos Mazón, over his management of the floods, and the next demonstration is planned for Saturday.

Regional authorities insist they did not have the information necessary to warn people sooner.

Before and after satellite images of the city of Valencia illustrated the magnitude of the catastrophe, showing the transformation of the Mediterranean metropolis into a landscape flooded with muddy waters.

Zoe Wilkes, a British woman living in Valencia, launched a group of volunteers to help rebuild the area, BBC News reported.

“It was just shocking,” Wilkes told BBC News. “You couldn’t understand how strong the water must be to throw the cars around like they were toys.”

Late last month, the area was hit by more bad weather when Storm Gabrielle flooded the region, BBC News reported. Footage showed flooding in parts of Valencia and Zaragoza, and the local weather agency said more than 7 inches of rain had fallen in six to eight hours around the Ebro delta. No injuries were reported, but schools, libraries and parks were closed.

In:

• Spain
• Flood