Regional government receives more than 500 calls about people who are ‘unaccounted for’ following the fire in Los Gallardos

Speaking to the media from the forward command post in Turre (Almeria), the minister called for a distinction to be made between the number of people reported missing and the number of calls made by relatives searching for their loved ones, as the latter “may already be around 500”.

“We may be sending out a message that is not true,” he warned those who treat these terms as synonymous, given that so far there have only been seven “genuine reports of disappearances” with the Guardia Civil, a figure which, in turn, is lower than the 12 fatalities recorded to date.

The regional government representative pointed out that mixing the two figures could be “misleading”, given that the number of people unaccounted for - which stood at 23 on Friday - fluctuates regularly.

“During the day, suddenly, five are found and the number drops because they were at a friend’s house, or because they were out of mobile coverage… well, all sorts of things happen,” he said.

In this regard, he pointed out that a significant proportion of the population affected by the fire - which has also spread to the municipalities of Bédar, Lubrín and Antas - are foreign nationals, meaning that “in many cases they may not have any information or be unable to contact their families” and they may not even “have known they were in the area, as in some cases they were on holiday”.

Sanz believes that the number of missing reports will rise as the day goes on, although he acknowledged that it would be “extremely worrying” if the number of missing persons reports filed with the Guardia Civil were to exceed the number of fatalities. “That would indeed be serious,” he added.

Meanwhile, Sanz pointed out that the post-mortem examinations of the 12 fatalities whose bodies were recovered throughout the day have already been carried out at the Institute of Forensic Medicine (IML) in Almería, and the DNA samples and biological profiles obtained were sent to Madrid at 7.30pm on Friday so that the identification could be carried out.

“Until the results of the DNA matching with relatives are available, it will not be possible to proceed with the identification,” the minister said, following the difficulties encountered in recent hours in determining the age, sex or origin of the bodies.

It should be noted that the Guardia Civil has set up an office at the Guardia Civil station in La Garrucha (Almeria) for relatives to report missing persons following the fire. The main priority is to identify the missing persons and to collect the DNA samples needed to identify the victims as quickly as possible.

The Guardia Civil has appealed to the immediate families of those missing in this incident to visit one of these offices so that the identification process can be expedited.