A desperate mother has begged rescuers to find her daughter who has been missing for four days following severe flooding in Spain with the death toll continuing to rise.
Rescue teams continue to search for victims trapped in swamped garages and cars in Valencia following the mega storm, which has claimed over 200 lives and left 2,000 still missing.
Among the many missing is Janine Mercado who has not been seen by her family for four days after the worst flash flooding in Spain’s modern history.
Speaking to Sky News, her father said: ‘It’s been four days since I’ve heard anything from her. I searched for her at the hospital. I also went to file a report, and here I don’t see anyone looking for her. I’m desperate.
‘She called me and I just got on the subway and couldn’t answer her.’
And in a tearful plea to her daughter, Janine’s emotional mother said: ‘I ask for help in finding Janine. We’re looking for her and if she is out there and suddenly doesn’t remember us, Janine please contact us.’
Weeping, the devastated parent adds: ‘Your family is looking for you. We haven’t stopped searching for you. We love you very much.’
A desperate mother has begged rescuers to find her daughter Janine Mercado who has been missing
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Janine’s father said: ‘I searched for her at the hospital. I also went to file a report, and here I don’t see anyone looking for her. I’m desperate’
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And in a tearful plea to her daughter, Janine’s emotional mother said: ‘I ask for help in finding Janine. We’re looking for her and if she is out there and suddenly doesn’t remember us, Janine please contact us’
Rescue teams search for missing people in a flooded residential car park in Picanya municipality, Valencia following the storm
Cars are piled high on a mud-sodden street in Valencia after the region was hit by deadly floods
A police officer checking inside piled up vehicles for victims in the aftermath of the flooding on Saturday
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A firefighter looking for possible victims in a white van stranded in the water in Alfafar
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Rescuers continue to search for survivors with fears underwater car parks will be ‘mass graves’
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Volunteers and residents clean the mud four days after flash floods swept away everything in their path in Paiporta, outskirts of Valencia
The official death toll stands at 211, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told a press conference on Saturday morning
The official death toll stands at 211, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told a press conference on Saturday morning, as rescue workers continue to comb seemingly abandoned homes in the grim search for survivors or bodies.
‘There are still dozens of people looking for their loved ones and hundreds of households mourning the loss of a relative, a friend or a neighbour,’ Sanchez said yesterday morning.
The Spanish Prime Minister has since ordered 5,000 more troops and 5,000 police officers and civil guards to join the rescue efforts.
Officials expect the death toll to keep rising, with the disaster already Europe’s worst flood-related calamities since 1967 when at least 500 people died in Portugal.
A Spanish presenter broadcasting from the scene emotional during her report said: ‘Allow me to be so frank, they’ve lived a f**ing horror, a f***ing hell what all these families are living here’.
It comes as a woman was found alive on Friday night after being trapped with her dead sister-in-law for three days in their car.
Dramatic footage emerged last tonight of the unnamed woman being pulled to safety by rescuers after they heard her cries within a pile of stranded vehicles.
The woman is thought to have been trapped by cars heaped on top of her vehicle, having all fallen on to the railway tunnel linking the towns of Benetusser and Alfafar in the suburbs of Valencia, the Sun reported.
Martin Perez, the president of the regional Proteccion Civil, revealed the discovery to volunteers. He said: ‘After three days we’ve found a person alive in a car.’
Footage posted online shows the moment the woman is pulled to freedom by rescuers who have been searching for survivors
The woman, wearing a yellow dressing gown, is seen being lifted into an emergency rescue vehicle by two men after being found trapped in her car
She was placed safely in the car by the rescuers who continue to search for victims trapped in swamped garages and cars in Valencia following the mega storm
Civil protection officers search cars for survivors in Benetusser, where a woman was found alive in car wreckage yesterday
