The death toll from Spain’s floods has risen to 205 as residents appeal for help

CHIVA, Spain. — The number of dead from historical flash floods the death toll in Spain rose to at least 205 on Friday, with many more missing, as initial shock gave way to anger, frustration and a wave of solidarity.

Spain’s emergency services said 202 victims were in the Valencia region alone, and officials warned more rain was expected in the coming days.

The damage from the storm on Tuesday and Wednesday resembled the aftermath of a tsunami, and survivors were left to pick up debris as they mourned loved ones killed in Spain’s worst natural disaster in living memory. Many streets were still closed vehicles and garbagein some cases trapping residents in their homes. In some places, there is still no electricity, water or stable telephone connection.

“The situation is incredible. It’s a disaster and there’s very little help,” said Emilio Cuartero, a resident of Masanasa on the outskirts of Valencia. “We need equipment, cranes, so that we can drive to the sites. We need a lot of help. And bread and water.”

On Friday, the residents of Chiva were busy clearing garbage from the mud-filled streets. More rain fell in the city of Valencia in eight hours on Tuesday than in the previous 20 months, and the water overflowed the ravine that cuts through the city, breaking roads and walls of houses.

The mayor of Amparo Fort told RNE radio that “whole houses have disappeared, we don’t know if there were people inside or not.”

So far, 205 bodies have been found: 202 in Valencia, two in the Castilla-La Mancha region and another in Andalusia. Security forces and soldiers are busy search for an unknown number of people missing, many feared to be trapped in wrecked cars or flooded garages.

“I spent my whole life there, all my memories are there, my parents lived there … and now, overnight, everything is gone,” Chiva resident Juan Vicente Perez, near where he lost his home, told The Associated Press. “If we had waited another five minutes, we would not be here in this world.”

Satellite images of the city of Valencia before and after illustrated the scale of the disaster, showing the transformation of the Mediterranean metropolis into a landscape flooded with muddy water. The V-33 track was completely covered with a thick layer of brown dirt.

The tragedy caused a wave of local solidarity. Residents of towns such as Paiporta, where at least 62 people died, and Catarroja walked kilometers (miles) through sticky mud to Valencia to get supplies, passing neighbors from unaffected areas who brought water, essentials and shovels or brooms to help remove mud. The number of people coming to help is so great that authorities have asked them not to go there because they are blocking roads needed by emergency services.

In addition to contributions from volunteers, associations such as the Red Cross and city councils distribute food.

And as authorities have said time and time again, more storms are expected. The Spanish Meteorological Agency has warned of heavy rain in Tarragona, Catalonia, as well as parts of the Balearic Islands.

Meanwhile, flood survivors and volunteers are doing a titanic job of cleaning up the ubiquitous layer of thick silt. The storm knocked out power and water Tuesday night, but about 85 percent of the 155,000 affected customers had power restored by Friday, the utility said in a statement.

“This is a disaster. There are many elderly people who do not have medicine. There are children who do not have food. We have no milk, no water. We don’t have access to anything,” a resident of Alfafar, one of the worst-hit towns in southern Valencia, told state-run TVE. “No one even came to warn us on the first day.”

Juan Ramon Adsuara, the mayor of Alfafar, said aid was not enough for residents who were in an “extreme situation”.

“People live with corpses at home. It is very sad. We organize ourselves, but we run out,” he told reporters. “We go in vans to Valencia, buy and come back, but here we are completely forgotten.”

Stormy water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that tore through homes and businesses, leaving many uninhabitable. Some shops were looted and the authorities arrested 50 people.

Social networks drew attention to the needs of the victims. Some have posted images of missing people in the hope of getting information about their whereabouts, while others have launched initiatives such as Suport Mutu, or Mutual Support, which matches requests for help with people who offer it. Others organized collections of essential goods across the country or launched fundraisers.

Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the worst flash flood in recent memory. Scientists link this to climate change, which is also the cause of increasingly high temperatures and drought in Spain and other countries heating of the Mediterranean Sea.

Human-induced climate change has doubled the likelihood of a storm like this week’s deluge in Valencia, according to a partial analysis released Thursday by World Weather Attribution, a group of dozens of international scientists studying the role of global warming in extreme weather. .

Spain suffered from a nearly two-year drought, which made the flooding worse because the dry ground was so hard that it could not absorb the rain.

In August 1996, a flood swept away a campsite along the Gallego River in Biescas in the northeast, killing 87 people.

___

Medrano reported from Madrid.