Survivors of the Spanish flood throw mud at the royal family and top officials in Paiporta

PAIPORTA, Spain — A crowd of angry survivors threw globs of mud left by stormy floods at Spain’s royal couple on Sunday during their first visit to the center of their country’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory.

Spain’s national broadcaster reported that the barrage included some stones and other objects and that two bodyguards were treated for injuries. One could be seen with a bloody wound on his forehead.

It was an unprecedented incident for a royal house that carefully paints a picture of monarchs adored by their country of more than 48 million people.

Spanish anger has been unleashed against a state that appears overwhelmed and unable to meet the needs of people used to living under an effective government.

Officials also rushed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez from the scene shortly after his contingent began walking through the muddy streets of one of the hardest-hit areas, killing more than 60 people and destroying thousands of lives. The disaster, fueled by climate change, killed at least 205 people in eastern Spain.

“Go away! Go away!” and “murderers!” the crowd in the city of Paiporta shouted, among other things. Bodyguards opened umbrellas to protect the royals and other officials from the thrown mud.

The police had to intervene, some officers on horseback, to hold back the crowd of several dozen people, some with shovels and sticks.

Queen Letizia burst into tears in sympathy after speaking to several people, including a woman who cried in her arms. Later, one of the Queen’s bodyguards had a bloody wound on his forehead and a hole in the rear window of the Prime Minister’s official car.

But even after being forced to seek protection, King Felipe VI, with mud stains on his face, remained calm and made several attempts to talk to individual residents. He insisted on talking to people as he tried to continue his visit. He spoke to several people, patted two young men on the back and shared a quick hug, with mud stains on his black raincoat.

Still, one woman hit a squad car with an umbrella and another kicked him before running off.

While far from arousing the passion that the British harbor for their royals, Felipe and Letizia’s public events are usually greeted by large numbers of fans.

Felipe, 56, ascended the throne when his father, Juan Carlos, stepped down in 2014 after being tarnished by self-made financial and personal scandals. Felipe immediately cut a new figure by renouncing his personal inheritance and increasing the financial transparency of his royal house. He and 52-year-old Letizia, a former journalist, devote a significant part of their public agenda to cultural and scientific causes.

Visits to sites of national tragedies are also part of royal duties for monarchs who are seen as a stabilizing force in a parliamentary monarchy restored after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

The king later told regional authorities at the command post of the relief efforts to “give hope to those affected by the flood and meet their needs, while ensuring that the state was there for them.”

Public anger over the haphazard management of the crisis is growing. Felipe heard cheers as he took part in a tribute to those killed in a deadly terror attack in Barcelona in 2017, but it was nothing like Sunday’s reception.

The queen had small blobs of mud on her hands and arms as she spoke to women.

“We don’t have water,” one woman told her.

Many people still have no drinking water five days after the floods. Internet and mobile telephony coverage remains patchy. Most people did not get power again until Saturday. Shops and supermarkets are in ruins and Paiporta, with a population of 30,000, still has many city blocks completely clogged with piles of rubbish, countless cars and a ubiquitous layer of mud.

Thousands of people have had their homes destroyed by a tsunami-like wave of mud, and outrage over the disaster’s mismanagement has begun.

Floods had already hit Paiporta when regional officials issued a mobile phone alert. It sounded two hours late.

Even more anger has been fueled by officials’ inability to respond quickly to the aftermath. Most of the clearing of the layers of mud and debris that have invaded scores of homes has been done by residents and thousands of volunteers.

“We have lost everything!” someone shouted.

Sunday’s cries included demands for Valencia regional president Carlo Mazón, whose government is responsible for civil protection, to resign, as well as “Where is Pedro Sánchez?”

“I understand the outrage and of course I stayed to receive it,” Mazón said of X. “It was my moral and political duty. The king’s attitude this morning was exemplary.”

Spanish national broadcaster RTVE reported that the barrage targeting the royals included the throwing of a few stones and other hard objects and two bodyguards being treated for injuries, with the monarchs and officials making another stop on Sunday in a second hard-hit village, Chiva. , about half an hour east of the city of Valencia.

Sánchez said recovery efforts will not be derailed by the incident.

“I want to express the solidarity of my government and its recognition of the fear, suffering, insecurity and needs of the residents of Paiporta and the Valencia region,” Sánchez said, adding that he believes the majority of people “the types of violence that we have unfortunately seen today.”

The mud-slinging scene took place as thousands more Spanish soldiers, national police officers and civil guard gendarmes arrived or were about to arrive at the disaster sites.

Wilson reported from Valencia, Spain.