“Over three days we’ve been in several garages with five or six bodies in each. It takes a toll on young soldiers, of course it does,” a non-commissioned officer in Spain’s UME emergency military said.
“What I try to do is rotate them and their roles so the same person doesn’t find the next one,” the officer, who could not give his name due to military guidelines, told The Telegraph.
“We know we’re going to find bodies because when we get to a building with a garage, there is someone there saying my husband or my wife went to move the car and I didn’t see them again. They want answers and that’s natural,” he said.
Unknown numbers remain missing, with the local authorities denying reports that the figure could be as high as 2,000.
Speaking loudly over the screeching sound of a car being towed clear of the underpass, UME soldier Mario Villena shrugged off the impact of the bodies he had seen over recent days.
“It’s our job, full stop. There’s no way around it in a catastrophe such as this we’re seeing here,” he said.
Private Villena was joined by several soldiers currently off-duty but who had turned up to help out with the clearance operation, wearing civilian clothing with military motifs to differentiate themselves from UME personnel on duty.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Valencian volunteers continued to assist with the clean-up, taking emergency supplies to stricken towns and neighbourhoods.