The “Murcian” from Holland Searching for Missing Persons After the DANA with Trained Dogs
Jerome Van Passel, former mayor of Santo Ángel, leads a team of rescuers from the Reddingshonden Foundation in Valencia.
The Dutch rescue team with trained dogs in Valencia
The Reddingshonden Foundation, a Dutch non-profit organization with more than 35 years of experience in search and rescue operations, deployed a contingent of twenty volunteers and twelve trained dogs last Sunday to the areas affected by the DANA on October 29. The group is coordinated by Jerome Van Passel, a native of the Netherlands and former mayor of Santo Ángel, who did not hesitate to travel from Murcia to act as a liaison with the authorities due to his membership in the foundation and his fluency in the Dutch language.
Given the situation caused by the flash flood in the province of Valencia, a search and rescue team with “extensive international experience” arrived in the affected area to join the efforts to locate the eleven people who are still missing. The presence of this international team “offers hope” to the families who are still waiting to find the bodies of their loved ones.
Deployment of International Rescue Forces
The Dutch team set up its base of operations at the Universitat Politècnica de València pavilion, where it coordinates its actions alongside the Firefighters Consortium. In this regard, the volunteers are divided into three groups and “sometimes work alongside other firefighters and Civil Guard officers,” while “other times they work alone,” Van Passel explains. The Dutch volunteers will return to their country this weekend: a “reduced” group will leave this Saturday, while the rest will return next Sunday.
“We have to figure out our own way every day to reach the affected areas,” laments the group’s coordinator
The volunteer group coordinator recalls that the images of the province of Valencia on October 29, when the DANA struck, “went around the world.” Because of this, back in Holland, the volunteers “got to work to try to reach the affected municipalities in order to help and identify the missing persons.”
Transport Challenges and Local Support
Regarding the tasks performed by the volunteers in the areas severely impacted by the DANA, Van Passel explains that “it would be impossible to work without the local residents” because transportation to the damaged municipalities is organized with the help of voluntary Valencian citizens. Likewise, Van Passel explains that they were “surprised” when “[the institutions] said that we could come, but that we had to fend for ourselves.”
“We always make it clear from the very beginning that transportation must be provided by the institutions of the countries we visit, but the ones here [the Valencian and Spanish authorities] told us that we had to figure it out ourselves if we came,” he notes.
Administrative Hurdles and Water Search Offer
According to the specialist, the volunteers contacted the Spanish Consulate and the Spanish Embassy in Holland to try to get to Valencia “as soon as possible.” “They were told that they couldn’t facilitate their arrival in Valencia, so they called me to see if I could do something,” he emphasized. Van Passel has been a member of the Reddingshonden Foundation since 2014.
At that point, the foundation coordinator contacted the Regional Government of Valencia (Generalitat Valenciana), which, according to him, provided a telephone number and had him fill out a form. “The initial offer was 25 dogs specialized in search and rescue operations in water areas,” he indicated. Likewise, the coordinator of the volunteer group also stressed that they had never experienced “anything like this.” “We have to figure out our own way every day to reach the affected areas,” he insists.
The Dutch specialists offered to collaborate after seeing images “that went around the world”
Joint Operations Across Affected Zones
During this week, Van Passel stated that they are working with firefighters from different countries, as well as officers from the Civil Guard and the Military Emergency Unit (UME). Furthermore, he highlights that the volunteer group is sharing living space with French and Portuguese firefighters. Over the past two days, they have been working on body recovery tasks in the Albufera lagoon and in the Valencian town of Montserrat, which was also affected by the historic flash flood.
Original article: La Verdad (20/11/2024)
