Spain searches for bodies after unprecedented flooding claims at least 158 lives

Crews searched for bodies in stranded cars and sodden buildings Thursday as residents salvaged what they could from their ruined homes following monstrous flash floods in Spain that claimed at least 158 lives, with 155 deaths confirmed in the eastern Valencia region alone.

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

Cars were piled on one another like fallen dominoes, uprooted trees, downed power lines and household items all mired 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 could be found.

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

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 demolished bridges and left roads unrecognizable.

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

“I saw bodies floating past. I called out, but nothing,” Sánchez said. “The firefighters took the elderly first, when they could get in. I am from nearby so I tried to help and rescue people. People were crying all over, they were trapped.”

Regional authorities said late Wednesday that rescuers in helicopters saved some 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 rescue efforts told Spain’s national radio RNE from the town of Utiel, where at least six people died.

An Associated Press journalist 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 meeting with officials and emergency services in Valencia on Thursday, 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 memory. Scientists link it to climate change, which is also behind increasingly high temperatures and droughts in Spain and the heating up of the Mediterranean Sea.

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

Spain has suffered through an almost two-year drought, meaning that when the deluge happened late Tuesday and early Wednesday, the ground was so hard that it could not absorb the rain, leading to flash floods.

The violent weather event surprised regional government officials. Spain’s national weather service said it rained more in eight hours in the Valencian town of Chiva than it had in the preceding 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 though a bomb had detonated inside, obliterating furniture and belongings, and stripping the paint off some walls.

In Paiporta, mayor Maribel Albalat said Thursday that at least 62 people had perished in the ommunity 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 town center,” Albalat told RTVE. “There were also a lot of 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 over huge swaths of the south and eastern coast of the Iberian peninsula. Two fatalities were confirmed in the neighboring Castilla La Mancha region and one in southern Andalusia.

Greenhouses and farms across southern Spain, known as Europe’s garden for its exported produce, were also ruined by heavy rains and flooding. The storms spawned a freak tornado in Valencia and a hail storm that punched holes in cars in Andalusia. Homes were left without water as far southwest as Malaga in Andalusia.

Heavy rains continued Thursday farther north as the Spanish weather agency issued alerts for several counties in Castellón, in the eastern Valencia region, and for Tarragona in Catalonia, as well as southwest Cadiz.

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

Frustration brews as residents hunt for basic supplies

As the shock dissipated, anger grew over the authorities' handling of the crisis, both for their late warnings of the looming 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 the mud, destruction and debris left by the storm made some roads unpassable. Some pushed shopping carts along sodden streets while others carried their children to keep them out of the muck.

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

The region remained partly isolated with several roads cut off and train lines interrupted, including the high-speed service to Madrid. Officials said it would take two to three weeks to repair that 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 on Thursday asked if Spain’s army could assist with distributing 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 — prompted some to enter abandoned stores.

The National Police arrested 39 people for looting on Wednesday. The Civil Guard said it detained 11 people for thefts in 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 have no running water or a way to get to stores that were not wrecked.

“We are not thieves. I work as a cleaner at the school for the council. But we have to eat. Look at what I’m picking up: baby food for the baby,” said Nieves Vargas in a local supermarket whose doors had been tossed aside by the water and was unattended by staff. “What can I give to 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, D.C., contributed.