Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has ordered the country’s largest peacetime military deployment, announcing that 10,000 troops and police officers will be drafted in to help deal with the aftermath of this week’s devastating floods, which have killed at least 211 people in eastern, southern and central regions.

Speaking after chairing a meeting of the flood crisis committee, Sánchez said the government was mobilising all the resources at its disposal to deal with the “terrible tragedy”, which stuck hardest in the eastern region of Valencia. He also acknowledged that much of the help still wasn’t getting through and called for unity and an end to political bickering and blame games.

“There are still dozens of people looking for their loved ones and hundreds of households mourning the loss of a relative, a friend or a neighbour,” he said in a televised address on Saturday morning. “I want to express our deepest love to them and assure them that the government of Spain and the entire state, at all its different administrative levels, is with all of them.”