SEDAVI, Spain (AP) — Francisco Murgui went out to try to salvage his motorbike when the water started to rise.

He never came back.

One week after catastrophic flooding devasted eastern Spain, María Murgui still holds out hope that her father is alive and among the unknown number of the missing.

“He was like many people in town who went out to get their car or motorbike to safety,” the 27-year-old told The Associated Press. “The flash flood caught him outside, and he had to cling to a tree in order to escape drowning. He called us to tell us he was fine, that we shouldn’t worry.”

But when María set out into the streets of Sedaví to try to rescue him from the water washing away everything in its path, he was nowhere to be found.

“He held up until 1 in the morning,” she said. “By 2, I went outside with a neighbor and a rope to try to locate him. But we couldn’t find him. And since then, we haven’t heard anything about him.”

Central government passes relief package

Meanwhile, the gargantuan recovery efforts in Sedaví and dozens of other communities slowly moved forward.

The central government on Tuesday approved a 10.6-billion-euro ($11.6-billion) relief package for 78 communities where at least one person has died the floods. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez compared it to the measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The package includes direct payments of 20,000 euros to 60,000 euros to owners of damaged homes, and financial aid for businesses and municipal governments.

“We have a lot of work left to do, and we know it,” Sánchez said.

Sánchez said he will ask the European Union to help pay for the relief, saying “it is time for the European Union to help.”

Many people are still without basic goods amid scenes of devastation

The floods have left behind post-apocalyptic scenes.

In town after town, streets are still covered with thick brown mud and mounds of ruined belongings, clumps of rotting vegetation and wrecked vehicles. A stench arises from the muck.

In many places, people still face shortages of basic goods, and lines form at impromptu emergency kitchens and stands handing out food. Water is running again but authorities say it is not fit for drinking.

The ground floors of thousands of homes have been ruined. It is feared that inside some of the vehicles that were washed away or trapped in underground garages there could be bodies waiting to be recovered.

Thousands of soldiers are working with firefighters and police reinforcements in the immense emergency response. Officers and troops are searching in destroyed homes, and in the countless cars strewn across highways and streets or lodged in the mud in canals and gorges.

Thousands of volunteers are helping out, but frustration over the crisis management boiled over on Sunday when a crowd in hard-hit Paiporta hurled mud and other objects at Spain’s royals, Sánchez and regional officials. It was their first visit to the epicenter of the flood damage.