Spanish research ship enlisted for grim task of finding cars & bodies swept out to sea in floods using robot sub & sonar

A SPANISH research ship has been enlisted for the grim task of searching for cars and bodies swept out to sea in the catastrophic floods that rocked Spain.

The vessel will be using robot submarine and sonar to scan and map the seabed in the increasingly desperate search for those who were swept away.

The hope is that a map of sunken vehicles could lead to the recovery of bodies, after cars became death traps when the tsunami-like flooding hit on October 29.

The 24 crew members aboard the Ramón Margalef are preparing to use its sensors and submersible robot to map an offshore area of 10 square miles, the equivalent of more than 5,000 soccer fields, the search for missing people.

The boat’s submersible robot loaded with cameras can dive to a depth of 60 meters to attempt to identify cars.

Nearly 100 people have been officially declared missing, and authorities admit that is likely more people are unaccounted for, in addition to more than the 200 declared dead.

Pablo Carrera, the marine biologist leading the mission, said his team would be able to hand over useful information to police and emergency services in 10 days.

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.

He said: “It would be like finding a needle in a haystack."

The first area the Ramón 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.

Emergency searchers have also used poles to probe into layers of mud while sniffer dogs tried to find scent traces of bodies buried in canal banks and fields.

The horrifically high death toll has sparked outrage among residents, with some accusing Spanish authorities of not warning people about the dangers posed by the weather soon enough.

500 soldiers joined in the search for missing people and another 500 were deployed in the worst affected region - Valencia.

Around 1,200 troops have already been helping with rescuing residents and conducting clean-up operations.

Psychologists have even been placed in the area to attend to residents and soldiers at the devastating scene.

Crews were searching for bodies in stranded cars and sodden buildings on Thursday as residents salvaged what they could from their ruined homes.

It comes after Spain was hit by fresh floods with dramatic footage showing mounds of destroyed cars piled high in an overflowing river.

The images are eerily similar to those out of Valencia where more than 200 people died after torrential rains and storms struck the still-grieving nation.

Agonising scenes saw roads turned into rivers and torrents of debris-filled mud sweeping away cars, people, animals and buildings.

On Friday morning another raging flood swept through the centre of Cadaques, a town in Girona, in the northeastern region of Catalan.

Residents woke up to the fresh destruction with local mayor Pia Serinyana confirming over 30 cars had been washed away by flooding.

A nearby river had burst its banks, just as many had some 10 days ago in and around Valencia.

Cadaques is just over 300 miles north of Valencia, where more than 200 people including two Brits lost their lives in flash floods late last month and 78 people are still missing.

It marked Spain's worst natural disaster in memory prompting the King and Queen to visit devastated areas themselves in an effort to boost morale and talk to survivors.