VALENCIA, SPAIN, NOV 3 (AFP/APP): Spain is deploying 10,000 more troops and police officers to the eastern Valencia region devastated by historic floods that have killed 211 people, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday.

Hopes of finding survivors ebbed four days after torrents of muddy water submerged towns and wrecked infrastructure in the European country’s worst such disaster in decades.

Almost all the deaths have been recorded in the Valencia region, where thousands of security and emergency services personnel were frantically clearing debris and mud in the search for bodies.

Sanchez said in a televised address that the disaster was the second deadliest flood in Europe this century and announced a huge increase in the security forces dedicated to relief works.

The government had accepted the Valencia region leader’s request for 5,000 more troops and informed him of a further deployment of 5,000 police officers and civil guards, Sanchez said.

Spain was carrying out its largest deployment of army and security force personnel in peacetime, he added.