The body of the father of the child who died in the flood in Sant Quintí de Mediona has been identified.

San Quintín de Mediona (Alt Penedès)The Mossos d'Esquadra have confirmed that the second body found this Monday in the Mediona stream is the 47-year-old man they were looking for after a sudden flood swept away the vehicle he was in with on Sunday afternoon. his 10-year-old son, the corpse The family car they were traveling in was swept away by the rising water level of the Mediona stream due to the storm that affected much of the country. Around six in the evening, the vehicle was seen traveling along a road towards the Monterrey housing estate in the same municipality and they were surprised by the rising water of the stream, which swept the car with the father and son inside. "It's the stream that grandmothers always say we watch out for when we pass," explains one of the residents of Sant Quintí, who also admits that normally everyone passes through without fear because it's almost always dry or with less than a foot of water. The problem is that, as the firefighters have explained, at that time and due to the downpours, the stream was up to three meters deep. That amount of water, combined with the virulence—the water level reached 60 cubic meters per second—also led firefighters to find the minor's body yesterday 6 km from where they had found the car he was traveling in.

However, the father's body, which was located this Monday, was only 800 meters from where the vehicle began to slide and next to where the firefighters had set up the command center, in the Sant Quintí de Mediona pavilion. About fifteen relatives of the victims had also traveled to the site. These relatives, faced with the helplessness they felt while waiting and the fact that the command post was very close to the river, took turns approaching the water throughout the morning to try to find any clues to find the missing man.

17 km of searching

Despite the proximity to the location from which the search was being organized, the victim's body had not been located because it had been left "in a reedy area and half buried." In fact, the rapidity with which the waters fell in the area last night meant that this morning firefighters had to re-combine the entire area, which had already been inspected the night before, with underwater personnel, drones, forest rangers to clear brush, dogs from the Canine Investigation Group, and a helicopter for each helicopter.

The improved weather conditions and the drastic reduction in the river's flow—some underwater agents claim that 12 hours earlier the river had three times as much water as this morning—have allowed emergency services to inspect the area meter by meter to reach the area. It has also made it possible for the EPAF units of the forest rangers to clear areas of the riverbed that until then had been covered in water and were impassable. However, the search has extended to 17 km (six of which were already combed on Sunday and eleven that were worked on this Monday) between the Duc torrent, which flows next to Sant Quintí de Mediona, and its mouth in the Anoia River, about ten kilometers away.

The territorial delegate of the Penedès regional government, Lluís Valls, also traveled to the scene and asked for patience while the identification work is carried out. He also defended the fact that an ES-Alert alert was not sent to the area on Sunday. "It is another method of communicating alerts that is activated when the conditions are much more localized in a specific location. Yesterday was a very widespread incident that had been reported," he insisted.

President Salvador Illa also expressed his condolences in a message on social media, in which he announced that "unfortunately, rescue teams have found the lifeless body of the second person missing due to the rain in Catalonia" and urged citizens to exercise caution and responsibility.