WHAT until yesterday was the Las Nieves campsite is now a desolate place, writes Juan Carlos de la Cal. A bombsite, an earthquake, Apocalypse Now rolled into one. Soldiers, police, ambulances, and helicopters are taking off and landing continually.
One sees rivers where once were plains, crushed cars instead of trees, fallen trees in place of caravans - and thousands of rocks.
The silhouette of a woman stands out clearly in the mud. She is face down and has something in her arms. She moves, but nobody doubts that she is dead. When they turn the body over, however, life stirs miraculously. A baby, barely two months old, is alive, its eyes are shut and it spits mud from its little mouth.
Francois, half crazed, his clothes in tatters and his eyes unnaturally wide open, stops everyone he comes across on the road to show them the crumpled photo of his wife and daughter. He splutters their names in all the languages he knows. He desperately clutches the chest of the civil guard trying to calm him. "No, no, leave me. They're there, I know it. In that tree. She was holding on tight and my little one..." Francois falls silent. He shuts his eyes and lets himself be led away quietly to a car.
As the day progresses, the "harvest" of bodies diminishes. Just in the vicinity of the main road they have found some 20. If there are more, they could take days to turn up. News arrives of one body found 10 miles away, floating in the marshes where the Gallego river passes through Sabinanigo. The search now centres on this area.
Most of the rescuers fear the worst. If the force of the current has managed to sweep bodies so far away, it is possible that the bottom of the reservoir is full of them.
One rescuer said: "The Rio Gallego has spread horror and death. There will never be another camp site at Biescas."