Spain floods kill at least 158 ​​bodies may still be trapped in cars – National

Crews searched for bodies in stranded cars and barricaded buildings on Thursday as people tried to save what they could from their destroyed homes following Spain’s worst floods that killed 158 people, with 155 dead in one location alone.

More horrors emerged from the debris and mud strewn all over the place left by the walls of water that caused Spain’s deadliest natural disaster. Officials said on Thursday that 155 people had died in floods in the worst-hit region of Valencia.

The widespread damage is reminiscent of the effect of a hurricane or tsunami.

Cars were piled up like fallen dominoes, downed trees, downed power lines and household items all littered the streets of several communities in Valencia.

An unknown number of people are still missing and other victims may be found.

“Unfortunately, there are people who died in other vehicles,” said Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente.

The rushing water turned narrow roads into death loops and created rivers that swept through homes and businesses, sweeping away cars, people and everything else in their path. These floods destroyed the bridges and left the roads impassable.

Luís Sánchez, a publisher, was one of the lucky ones when the storm turned the V-31 highway south of the city of Valencia into a floating graveyard filled with hundreds of cars. He said he saved a few people.

“I saw the bodies floating. I shouted but nothing happened,” said Sánchez. “The firemen took the old women first, when they were able to enter. I am from the neighborhood so I tried to help and rescue people. People were crying everywhere, trapped.”

Regional authorities said on Wednesday night that there appeared to be no one left on the roof or in the cars that needed rescuing after helicopters rescued about 70 people.

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

Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to raining autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the strongest flash flood event in recent memory. Scientists link it to climate change, which is also responsible for high temperatures and droughts in Spain and the warming of the Mediterranean Sea.

Human-caused climate change has doubled the likelihood of a storm like this week’s flooding in Valencia, according to a quick but incomplete analysis Thursday by the World Weather Attribution, which includes dozens of international scientists who study the role of global warming in extreme weather.

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The worst pain was concentrated in Paiporta, a community of 25,000 people near the city of Valencia where Mayor Maribel Albalat said Thursday that 62 people had died.

“(Paiporta) has never had floods, we have never had a problem of this kind. And we found a lot of old people in the city center,” said Albalat to the national broadcaster RTVE. “There were also a lot of people coming to get their cars out of their garages… it was a real trap.”

Although the most suffering was caused by municipalities near the city of Valencia, the storms unleashed their fury on large areas along the southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian peninsula. Two people were reported dead in the neighboring region of Castilla La Mancha and one in southern Andalusia.

The president of the Castilla La Mancha region, Emilion García-Page, said at least one Guardia Civil police officer was among several people missing in the town of Letur.

Homes remained without water in places as far south as Malaga in Andalusia, where a high-speed train derailed on Tuesday night although none of the nearly 300 passengers were injured.

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Floods in Spain: At least 64 dead after heavy flooding prompts red alert from weather agency

Greenhouses and farms throughout southern Spain, known as the garden of Europe for its exports, were also damaged by heavy rains and floods. The storms caused a terrible tornado in Valencia and hail that blew holes in cars in Andalusia.

Heavy rains continued on Thursday in the north as Spain’s weather agency issued a red alert for several regions in Castellon, the eastern region of Valencia, and Tarragona in Catalonia. An orange warning has been issued southwest of Cadiz.

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

More than 1,000 soldiers from Spain’s emergency rescue centers joined regional and local emergency services in the search for bodies and survivors. The soldiers had removed 22 bodies and rescued 110 people on Wednesday night.

“We are searching house by house,” Ángel Martínez, of the military’s emergency unit, told Spanish national radio broadcaster RNE in the town of Utiel, where at least six people died.

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

The region was left isolated as several roads were closed and train lines disrupted, including the high-speed service to Madrid, which officials said would not be repaired for two to three weeks.

A man broke down in tears when he showed a reporter from the national radio station RTVE the shell of what used to be the floor of his house in Catarroja, a city south of Valencia. It was as if a bomb went off inside, destroying furniture and belongings, stripping paint from some walls.

This chaos also caused some to smash and take goods. The National Police arrested 39 people on Wednesday for looting shops in areas affected by the storms. The Civil Guard has tasked officials to stop the looting of homes, cars and malls.

The violent weather incident caught the district government officials by surprise. Spain’s National Weather Service says it rained 8 hours more in the city of Chiva than in the past 20 months, calling the flood “unusual.”

However, the calm of the next day also gave time to think and ask for an official answer. The Valencia regional government has been criticized for not sending flood warnings to people’s cellphones until 8pm on Tuesday, when flooding had already started in some parts and after the national weather agency issued a red warning for heavy rains.

Andreu Salom, the Valencian Mayor of L’Alcudia, told RTVE that his city had lost at least two residents, a daughter and her elderly mother who lived together, and that the police were still searching for the missing truck driver.

He also lamented that he and the people of his town had no warning about the tragedy that occurred when the Magro river overflowed its banks on Tuesday evening.

“I was also on my way to check how big the river was because I had no information,” said Salom. “I went with the local police but we had to turn around because a tsunami of water, mud, reeds and dust had entered the city.”

Mari Carmen Pérez said by phone from Barrio de la Torre, a suburb of Valencia, that her phone rang with a flood warning after the rushing water had already forced open the front door and filled the first floor, forcing her family to flee upstairs.

“They didn’t know anything about what was going on,” said Pérez, the cleaner. “Everything is ruined. People here, we have never seen anything like this.”

The President of the Valencia region, Carlos Mazón, defended his administration in the crisis, saying “all our administration followed the general rule.”