At least 72 people have died in devastating floods in eastern Spain

BARCELONA, Spain. Flash flooding in eastern Spain washed away cars, turned country streets into rivers, disrupted rail lines and highways and killed at least 72 people in the worst natural disaster to hit the European country in recent memory.

The downpours, which began on Tuesday and continued into Wednesday, caused flooding in a wide area of ​​southern and eastern Spain, stretching from Malaga to Valencia. Muddy currents tossed vehicles through the streets at high speeds, while pieces of wood swirled in the water along with household items. Police and emergency services used helicopters to lift people from their homes and rubber boats to reach drivers stuck on their roofs.

Emergency services in the eastern region of Valencia confirmed the death toll at 70 on Wednesday. Two more victims were reported in the neighboring region of Castile-La Mancha.

“Yesterday was the worst day of my life,” Ricardo Gabaldón, mayor of Utiel in Valencia, told national broadcaster RTVE on Wednesday. According to him, six residents of his town were killed, and several more are considered missing.

“We fell into a trap like rats. Cars and garbage containers flowed through the streets. The water rose up to 3 meters (9.8 feet),” he said.

Searchers worked to find survivors and victims, countless of whom are still missing. The Spanish government has announced that it will declare three days of mourning for those who died in the devastating floods from Thursday.

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

More than 1,600 soldiers from Spain’s emergency response units were sent to the devastated areas, and rescuers were heading to affected areas from across the country. Spain’s central government has set up a crisis committee to coordinate rescue efforts.

The elderly were the most vulnerable. RTVE broadcast footage of elderly people in chairs and wheelchairs with water rising above their knees in a nursing home, while a military unit rescued an elderly couple from the top floor of their home in a bulldozer bucket.

Television reports showed videos taken by panicked residents of water flooding the first floors of apartment buildings, streams bursting their banks and bridges collapsing. People gasped, pointing to what they feared might be bodies bobbing in the rushing brown flood.

The National Meteorological Service of Spain called the rainfall “extraordinary” in some areas of Valencia.

Spain survived similar autumn storms in recent years. However, nothing compared to the flood-like devastation of the last two days in Germany and Belgium in 2021, 230 people were killed.

The death toll is likely to rise as other regions are yet to report casualties and search operations continue in hard-to-reach areas.

“We are facing a very difficult situation,” said Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Victor Torres. “The fact that we cannot name the number of missing people shows the scale of the tragedy.”

In the village of Letur in the neighboring Castilla-La Mancha region, Mayor Sergio Marin Sanchez said five people were missing.

Spain is still recovering from a severe and record drought high temperatures in recent years. Scientists say that episodes of extreme weather are becoming more frequent probably related to climate change. The prolonged drought also made it difficult for the soil to absorb large amounts of water.

The storms produced ferocious hail that blew holes in car windows and greenhouses, as well as tornadoes that are rarely seen.

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 train service between the city of Valencia and Madrid was suspended, as were suburban lines. About 1,500 people stayed overnight at Valencia airport before their flights.

The regional president of Valencia, Carlos Mason, urged people to stay at home as road travel was already difficult due to fallen trees and wrecked cars. Rescue efforts were hampered by downed power lines, leaving areas without power and phone lines jammed with calls, Mazon said. According to him, the regional emergency service handled about 30,000 calls.

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

She said the bloc could activate a civil protection mechanism, offering joint assistance from the other 26 member states if Spain needed help.

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

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

“The area is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it’s literally broken,” Cristian Viena, a bar owner in the Valencian village of Barrio de la Torre, said by phone. “Everything is complete rubble, everything is ready to be thrown away. The depth of the silt is almost 30 centimeters (11 inches).”

Outside the Viena bar, people came out to see what could be salvaged. Cars were piled up and the streets were filled with piles of waterlogged branches.

Relatives of the missing filled social networks and local radio stations with appeals to find their relatives.

Leonardo Enrique told RTVE that his family spent hours looking for his son, 40-year-old Leonardo Enrique Rivera, who was driving the van when the rain started. His son sent word that his van had flooded and that he had been hit by another car while he was near Ribarroch, an industrial town that is one of the hardest hit, Enrique said.

Football matches between Valencia and the neighboring club Levante were postponed.

Located south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast, Valencia is a tourist destination known for its beaches, citrus groves and the birthplace of the Spanish rice dish paella.

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

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

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Medrano reported from Madrid. Associated Press reporter Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.