Spain flood death toll tops 200 as rescue teams search for missing

Rescuers in Spain are scrambling to reach areas still cut off by torrential rains as the death toll from catastrophic flooding rises to 205 in Europe’s worst weather disaster in five decades.

In Valencia, the eastern region hit by the devastation this week, hundreds of soldiers were deployed to hunt for missing people and help survivors of the storm, which prompted a new weather warning in Huelva in southwestern Spain.

Officials said the death toll was likely to rise. It is already the worst flood in Spain’s modern history and the deadliest disaster to hit Europe since the 1970s.

In a matter of minutes on Tuesday, flash flooding caused by heavy downpours washed away everything in its path – destroying roads, railway tracks and bridges as rivers overflowed their banks. The flood also flooded thousands of hectares of agricultural land.

On Friday, thousands of people across Valencia took part in a massive clean-up. Residents of Chiva, one of the cities that received the heaviest rains, carried buckets, shovels, brooms, mops and bottles of water.

“About a year’s worth of rain fell in one day, and as you can see it had a devastating effect on the community. They are still disconnected – no electricity, no connection to any power system,” Al Jazeera correspondent Sonia Gallego said, Chiva reports.

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.”

“The community itself has to come together and deal with provisions for everyone, because until now they have not received help from the regional government,” Gallego said, noting that people from other cities have come to help clear the debris.

“In one night everything disappeared”

So far, 205 bodies have been found: 202 in Valencia, two in the Castilla-La Mancha region south and east of Madrid and another in Andalusia in southern Spain.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlasca told a news conference in Valencia that law enforcement agencies had rescued more than 4,500 people trapped by the flood.

Security forces and 1,700 soldiers from an ambulance unit are searching for an unknown number of missing people. Another 500 soldiers will be sent on Saturday, regional authorities said.

At the same time, new storms are expected. The Spanish Meteorological Agency has warned of heavy rain in Tarragona, Catalonia, as well as parts of the Balearic Islands.

In Valencia, many streets were still blocked by piles of cars and debris, with residents trapped in their homes in some cases. 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,” Emilio Cuartero, a resident of Massanassa on the outskirts of Valencia, told The Associated Press. “We need equipment, cranes, so that we can drive up to the objects. We need a lot of help, bread and water.”

Speaking to the AP, Chiva resident Juan Vicente Perez said, “I’ve been there my whole life. All my memories are there. My parents lived there, … and now everything is gone in one night.”

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 B-33 track was covered with a thick layer of dirt.