Spain sends research vessel to scan seafloor for Valencia victims as flash floods hit different region

Barcelona — A Spanish research vessel that investigates marine ecosystems has been abruptly diverted from its usual task to take on a new job: Helping in the increasingly desperate search for the missing from Spain's deadly floods. As the dire work continued in the eastern province of Valencia to find the victims of the disaster and clean up the mess left behind, more torrential rain unleashed flash floods farther north along the coast, near Girona.

The 24 crew members aboard the Ramón Margalef were preparing Friday to use its sensors and submergible robot to map an offshore area of about 14 square miles — the equivalent of more than 5,000 soccer fields — to see if they can locate vehicles that last week's catastrophic floods swept into the Mediterranean Sea.

The hope is that a map of sunken vehicles could lead to the recovery of bodies. Nearly 100 people have been officially declared missing, and authorities admit that is likely more people are unaccounted for, in addition to more than 200 declared dead.