Floods in Spain claim at least 158 lives

By ALBERTO SAIZ, JOSEPH WILSON and TERESA MEDRANO

BARRIO DE LA TORRE, Spain (AP) — Crews searched for bodies Thursday in stranded cars and soaked buildings as residents tried to salvage what they could from their destroyed homes. monstrous flash floods in Spain claimed at least 158 lives, with 155 deaths confirmed in the eastern Valencia region alone.

On Thursday, more horrors emerged from the rubble and ubiquitous layers of mud left by the walls of water that caused Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory. The damage was reminiscent of the aftermath of a tsunami, with survivors picking up the pieces as they mourned their loved ones.

Cars lay piled on top of each other like toppled dominoes, uprooted trees, fallen power lines and household items, all stuck in the mud that covered the streets in dozens of communities in Valencia, a region south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast.

An unknown number of people are still missing and more victims could be found.

“Unfortunately, there are dead people in some vehicles,” Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said early on Thursday, before the death toll rose to 95 on Wednesday evening.

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A man cleans his house affected by flooding in Utiel, Spain, Wednesday, October 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

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The rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that tore through homes and businesses, sweeping away cars, people and everything else in its path. The floods have destroyed bridges and made roads unrecognizable.

Luís Sánchez, a welder, said he rescued several people trapped in their cars on the flooded V-31 highway south of the city of Valencia. The road quickly became a floating graveyard, littered with hundreds of vehicles.

“I saw bodies floating by. I shouted, but nothing,” Sánchez said. “The fire brigade first took the elderly with them when they could enter. I’m from the area, so I tried to help and save people. People were crying everywhere, they were stuck.”

Regional authorities said late Wednesday that rescuers in helicopters had rescued about 70 people stranded on rooftops and in cars, but ground crews were far from finished.

“Our priority is to find the victims and the missing so that we can help end the suffering of their families,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Thursday after meeting with officials and emergency services in Valencia, the first of three official days of mourning.

An ‘extraordinary’ deluge

Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the most powerful flash flood in recent history. Scientists link it to climate changewhich is also responsible for the increasingly higher temperatures and droughts in Spain and the warming of the Mediterranean Sea.

Man-made climate change has doubled the chance of a storm like this week’s deluge in Valencia, according to a quick but partial analysis Thursday by World Weather Attribution, made up of dozens of international scientists who study the role of global warming in extreme weather. study.

Spain has been in a drought of almost two years, meaning that when the deluge occurred late Tuesday and early Wednesday, the ground was so hard that it could not absorb the rain, leading to flash flooding.

The violent weather took regional government officials by surprise. Spain’s national weather service said it rained more in eight hours in the Valencian city of Chiva than in the previous 20 months. called the flood “extraordinary.”

In Paiporta, a community of 25,000 people next to the city of Valencia, Mayor Maribel Albalat said on Thursday that no fewer than 62 people had been killed.

“(Paiporta) never has floods, we never have these kinds of problems. And we found many elderly people in the city center,” Albalat told national broadcaster RTVE. “There were also a lot of people coming to get their cars out of their garages… it was a real trap.”

Farms damaged

While most suffering was inflicted on municipalities near the city of Valencia, the storms unleashed their fury across vast swaths of the southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. Two fatalities were confirmed in the neighboring region of Castilla La Mancha and one in southern Andalusia.

Greenhouses and farms across southern Spain, known as the European Garden because of its exported produce, were also devastated by heavy rains and flooding. The storms caused a bizarre tornado in Valencia and a hail storm that punched holes in cars in Andalusia. Houses were without water as far south as Malaga, in Andalusia.

The heavy rain continued further north on Thursday as the Spanish weather agency issued warnings for several provinces in Castellón, in the eastern Valencia region, and for Tarragona in Catalonia, as well as for southwestern Cadiz.

“This storm front is still with us,” the prime minister said. “Stay at home and follow the official recommendation and you will help save lives.”

People pick up goods at a supermarket affected by the floods in Valencia, Spain, Thursday, October 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

The search continues amid the destruction

More than 1,000 soldiers from Spain’s emergency rescue units joined regional and local aid workers in the search for bodies and survivors.

“We are searching house by house,” Ángel Martínez from a military emergency unit told Spanish national radio RNE from the town of Utiel, where at least six people were killed.

An Associated Press journalist saw rescuers removing seven body bags from an underground garage in Barrio de la Torre on Thursday.

Many residents of both cities had to walk long distances in sticky mud to find food and water. Many of their cars were destroyed and the mud, destruction and debris left by the storm made some roads impassable. Some pushed shopping carts through the rain-soaked streets, while others carried their children to keep them out of the mud.

Valencia regional president Carlos Mazón asked on Thursday whether the Spanish army could help distribute basic goods to the population.

The National Police arrested 39 people on Wednesday for looting. The Guardia Civil deployed officers to stop further thefts from homes, cars and shopping centres.

About 150,000 people in Valencia were without electricity on Wednesday, but about half had electricity on Thursday, Spanish news agency EFE reported. An unknown number had no running water and relied on whatever bottled water they could find.

The region remained partially isolated with several roads cut and train lines interrupted, including the high-speed service to Madrid. Officials said it will take two to three weeks to repair the damaged line.

A man cried as he showed a reporter from national broadcaster RTVE the shell of what was once the ground floor of his home in Catarroja, south of Valencia. It looked like a bomb had exploded inside, destroying furniture and belongings and stripping paint from some walls.

Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain and Medrano from Madrid. Seth Borenstein from Washington DC contributed.

Originally published: October 31, 2024 at 11:20 AM EDT