Heavy rain in Barcelona disrupts rail service as troops search for more flood victims in Valencia

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Persistent storms in eastern Spain that have led to Last week’s massive floods killed at least 217 peopleespecially near Valencia, rain poured down on Barcelona on Monday, prompting authorities to suspend commuter rail service.

Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said he has suspended all commuter trains in northeastern Catalonia, a region of 8 million inhabitants, at the request of civil protection officials.

Mobile phones in Barcelona beeped with a warning of “extreme and persistent rainfall” on the southern edge of the city. The warning urged people to avoid normally dry gorges or canals.

Puente said the rain had forced air traffic controllers to change the course of 15 flights at Barcelona airport, located on the city’s southern flank.

Several highways are closed due to flooding.

Classes in Tarragona, a city in southern Catalonia about halfway between Barcelona and Valencia, were canceled after a red alert was issued for rain.

Meanwhile, in Valencia, the search continued for bodies in houses and thousands of wrecked cars scattered on the streets, on highways and in canals channeled last week’s floods to populated areas.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said authorities were still unable to provide a reliable estimate of the missing. However, Spanish national television RTVE has broadcast pleas for help from several desperate people whose loved ones are missing.

In the municipality of Aldaia, about fifty soldiers, police and firefighters, some wearing wetsuits, searched the underground parking garage of a large shopping center for possible victims. They used a small boat and spotlights to move around the massive structure, with vehicles at least three feet deep in murky water.

Police spokesman Ricardo Gutiérrez told reporters that about 50 vehicles have been found so far and that no bodies have been discovered there.

Bonaire’s shopping center’s 1,800 underground parking spaces quickly filled with water and mud on Tuesday and Wednesday as a tsunami-like flood hit Valencia’s southern suburbs. The team uses four pumps to remove the water.

Citizens, volunteers and thousands of soldiers and police officers continue with their troops massive cleanup effort to clear mud and rubble.

Many people feel abandoned by the authorities; their anger erupts on sunday when a crowd threw mud at the Spanish royal couple, the Prime Minister and regional leaders as they made their first visit to Paiporta, where more than 60 people were killed survivors have lost their homes and still have no drinking water.

Spain is used to autumn storms that can lead to floods, but the latest ones have caused the deadliest floods in living memory for the Spanish.

That’s what climate scientists and meteorologists say the direct cause of the flood was a closed, lower pressure storm system migrating from an unusually wavy and stalled jet stream. It was probably fueled by a record hot Mediterranean Sea. That system simply parked itself over the region and caused a deluge.

The Spanish Navy transport ship ‘Galicia’ arrived at the port of Valencia on Monday with marines, helicopters and trucks full of food and water to help with the relief effort, including 7,500 soldiers and thousands of police reinforcements.