Spain is searching for bodies after floods that have killed at least 158 people

On November 1, 2024By Littum

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

More horrors emerged Thursday from debris and ubiquitous layers of mud left by the walls of water that produced Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory. The damage from the storm late Tuesday and early Wednesday resembled the aftermath of a tsunami, with survivors left to pick up the pieces as they mourn their loved ones.

Cars were piled on top of each other like overturned dominoes, uprooted trees, downed power lines and household items, all bound in mud that covered 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 may be found.

“Unfortunately, there are dead people inside some vehicles,” Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente said early Thursday, before the death toll rose from 95 on Wednesday evening.

sparkling 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 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 Valencia city. The road quickly became a floating graveyard littered with hundreds of vehicles.

“I saw bodies floating by. I shouted, but nothing,” said Sánchez. “The firemen took the elderly first when they could enter. I’m from nearby so I tried to help and save people. People were crying all over, they were trapped.”

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

“We are searching house by house,” Ángel Martínez, one of 1,000 soldiers helping with the rescue effort, told Spain’s national radio RNE from the town of Utiel, where at least six people died.

An Associated Press reporter saw rescuers remove seven body bags from an underground garage in Barrio de la Torre.

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

An ‘extraordinary’ flood

Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the heaviest flooding in recent memory. Scientists link it to climate changewhich is also behind increasingly higher temperatures and drought in Spain and the warming of the Mediterranean Sea.

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

Spain has been suffering from an almost two-year drought, meaning that when the deluge occurred, the ground was so hard that it could not absorb the rain, leading to flooding.

The severe weather event caught regional government officials by surprise. Spain’s national weather service said it rained more in eight hours in the Valencian city of Chiva than it had in the previous 20 months.

A man wept 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 as if a bomb had detonated inside, obliterating furniture and belongings and removing the paint from some walls.

In Paiporta, Mayor Maribel Albalat said Thursday that at least 62 people had died in the area of 25,000 next to Valencia city.

“(Paiporta) never has floods, we never have this kind of problem. And we found a lot of elderly people in the city center,” Albalat told RTVE. “There were also many people who came to get their cars out of their garages … it was a real trap.”

Farms damaged

While the most suffering was inflicted on municipalities near the city of Valencia, the storms unleashed their fury on vast swaths of the Iberian Peninsula’s southern and eastern coast. Two deaths were confirmed in the nearby Castilla La Mancha region and one in southern Andalusia.

Greenhouses and farms in southern Spain, known as the Garden of Europe for its exported produce, were also destroyed by heavy rain and flooding. The storms spawned a freak tornado in Valencia and a hailstorm that ripped through cars in Andalusia. Homes were without water as far south-west as Malaga in Andalusia.

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

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

Frustration sets in as residents scramble for basic supplies

As the shock wore off, anger over the authorities’ handling of the crisis grew, both for theirs late warnings about the threatening floods and the chaotic relief response.

Many survivors had to walk long distances in sticky mud to find food and water. Most of their cars had been destroyed, and mud, destruction and debris left by the storm made some roads impassable. Some pushed shopping carts along soaked streets, while others carried their children to keep them out of the mud.

About 150,000 people in Valencia were without electricity on Wednesday, but about half had power on Thursday. An unknown number did not have running water and depended on whatever bottled water they could find.

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

And with emergency personnel focused on recovering the dead, survivors were left to find basic supplies and clean up the mess. Volunteers joined locals in moving wrecked vehicles, removing junk and sweeping mud.

With local services clearly overwhelmed, Valencia regional president Carlos Mazón asked on Thursday if Spain’s army could help distribute basic goods to the population. The government in Madrid responded by promising to send in 500 more soldiers, more national police and civil guards.

But necessity – and the post-apocalyptic atmosphere – led some to enter abandoned shops.

The National Police arrested 39 people for looting on Wednesday. The Civil Guard said it detained 11 people for thefts at shopping malls, while its officers were also deployed to stop people stealing from cars.

Some people said they had to steal supplies, especially those who don’t have running water or a way to get to stores that weren’t destroyed.

“We are not thieves. I work as a cleaner at the school for the municipality. But we have to eat. Look at what I pick up: baby food for the baby,” Nieves Vargas said in a local supermarket whose doors had been thrown aside by the water and was unsupervised by the staff. “What can I give the child if we don’t have electricity.”

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Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain, and Leon reported from Valencia. Teresa Medrano in Madrid and Seth Borenstein in Washington, DC contributed.