Spain’s deadly flash floods in Valencia kill at least 64

At least 64 people have died in eastern Spain after floods swept away cars, turned village streets into rivers and disrupted rail lines and highways in the worst natural disaster to hit the European nation in recent memory.

Emergency services in the eastern region of Valencia confirmed a death toll of 62 people on Wednesday. Two more victims were reported in the nearby Castilla La Mancha region.

Rain caused flooding in a wide swath of southern and eastern Spain on Tuesday, stretching from Malaga to Valencia. Mud-stained floods sent vehicles tumbling down the streets at high speed, while pieces of wood swirled in the water mixed with household items. Police and emergency services used helicopters to lift people from their homes and inflatable boats to reach drivers trapped on the roofs of cars.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said dozens of towns had been flooded and warned the danger is not over.

“For those who are looking for their loved ones, all of Spain feels your pain,” Sánchez said in a televised address. “Our priority is to help you. We are deploying all the necessary resources so that we can recover from this tragedy.”

Authorities reported more people missing late Tuesday, but the following morning brought the shocking news that dozens had been found dead.

“Yesterday was the worst day of my life,” Ricardo Gabaldón, mayor of Utiel, a city in Valencia, told national broadcaster RTVE. He said several people were still missing in his town.

“We were trapped like rats. Cars and garbage containers streamed down the streets. The water rose to 3 meters (9.8 feet),” he said.

Over 1,000 soldiers from Spain’s emergency units were deployed to the devastated areas. Rescue services also rushed east from other parts of Spain. Spain’s central government set up an emergency committee to help coordinate rescue efforts.

An elderly couple were rescued from the top floor of their house by a military unit using a bulldozer, with three soldiers accompanying them in the huge shovel.

Television reports showed videos taken by panicked residents documenting water flooding the ground floors of apartment buildings, streams bursting their banks and bridges giving way.

Spain’s national weather service called the rainfall “extraordinary” at 491 liters per day. square meters (108 gallons per 32.3 square feet) collected in eight hours in the Valencian locality of Chiva.

Spain has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years. Nothing, however, compared to the devastation over the past two days, reminiscent of flooding in Germany and Belgium in 2021, when 230 people were killed.

The death toll is likely to rise with other regions yet to report casualties and search efforts continuing in hard-to-access areas.

In the village of Letur in the nearby Castilla La Mancha region, Mayor Sergio Marín Sánchez said six people were missing.

Spain is still recovering from a severe drought and continues to set records high temperatures in recent years. Scientists say increased episodes of extreme weather are probably linked to climate change.

The prolonged drought has also made it more difficult for the soil to absorb large amounts of water.

The storms unleashed a crazy hailstorm that blew holes in car windows and greenhouses, as well as a rarely seen tornado.

Transport was also affected. A high-speed train with nearly 300 people on board derailed near Malaga, although railway authorities said no one was injured. The high-speed rail link between Valencia city and Madrid was suspended, as were the commuter lines.

Valencia’s regional president, Carlos Mazón, urged people to stay at home as road travel is already difficult due to fallen trees and damaged vehicles. Rescue efforts were hampered, Mazón said, by downed power lines that left areas without electricity, while phone lines were jammed with calls. He said the regional emergency service had attended about 30,000 calls.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels that the EU will help by using its Copernicus geomonitoring satellite system “to help coordinate the rescue teams.”

The EU leader said the bloc is ready to activate a civil protection mechanism offering the combined assistance of the other 26 member states if Spain requests help.

“Europe is ready to help,” Von der Leyen said.

As the water receded, thick layers of mud mixed with debris made streets unrecognizable.

“The neighborhood is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it’s literally smashed,” Christian Viena, a bar owner in the Valencian village of Barrio de la Torre, said by telephone. “Everything is a total wreck, everything is ready to be thrown out. The mud is almost 30 centimeters (11 inches) deep.”

Outside Viena’s bar, people ventured out to see what they could salvage. Cars were piled up and the streets were littered with clumps of waterlogged branches.

Relatives of the missing filled social media and local TV and radio channels with appeals to find their loved ones.

Leonardo Enrique told RTVE that his family had been searching for hours for his son, Leonardo Enrique Rivera, 40, who was driving a van when it started to rain.

His son had sent a message that his van was flooded and that he had been hit by another vehicle when he was near Ribarroja, an industrial town which is one of the worst hit, Enrique said .

Located south of Barcelona down the Mediterranean coast, Valencia is a tourist destination known for its beaches, citrus groves and as the home of Spain’s paella rice dish.

Like some other areas of Spain, Valencia has canyons and small riverbeds that spend most of the year completely dry, but quickly fill with water when it rains. Many of them pass through populated areas.

The rain had eased in Valencia by late Wednesday morning as the storm moved north, prompting authorities in the Barcelona region to issue weather warnings.)