More than 150 dead in Spain’s worst flood-related disaster

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Rescue teams are still looking for missing people in what could become Europe’s worst storm-related disaster in the past five decades.

More than 150 dead in Spain's worst flood-related disaster

Many roads were blocked by abandoned cars.

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VALENCIA/GODELLETA: The death toll from devastating floods in eastern Spain rose to 158 on Thursday, with rescue teams still looking for missing people in what could become Europe’s worst storm-related disaster in the past five decades.

“There are a total of 158 people, which should include dozens of missing people,” Angel Victor Torres, Spain’s minister in charge of cooperation with the regions, told a press conference.

Parts of the Valencia region received a year’s worth of rain in eight hours on Tuesday.

The tragedy is already Spain’s worst flood-related disaster in modern history, and meteorologists say human-driven climate change is making such extreme weather events more frequent and destructive.

In 2021, at least 185 people died in heavy floods in Germany. Earlier, 209 people were killed in Romania in 1970 and nearly 500 people were killed by floods in Portugal in 1967.

Rescue teams recovered the bodies of eight people on Thursday, including a local policeman trapped in a garage on the outskirts of Valencia city, Mayor Maria Jose Catala told reporters.

In the same area of ​​La Torre, a 45-year-old woman was also found dead in her home, he said.

On Thursday, thousands of people carrying bags or pushing shopping trolleys could be seen crossing a pedestrian bridge over the Turia river from La Torre to Valencia city center to stock up on essential supplies such as toilet paper and water.

Opposition politicians accused the central government in Madrid of acting too slow to warn residents and dispatch rescue teams, leading the Interior Ministry to say regional authorities were responsible for civil protection measures.

“Those people wouldn’t have died if they had been warned in time,” Laura Villaescusa, a local supermarket manager and neighbour, told Reuters.

Maribel Albalat, the mayor of the nearby town of Paporta, said residents had not been warned of the imminent danger of the floods. She said 62 people had died in her town.

“We found that many elderly people were inside their homes and some had gone to get their cars. It was a trap,” she told TVE.

Clinging to a pole

In the town of Godelleta, 37 km (23 miles) west of the city of Valencia, Antonio Molina, 52, described how he survived on Tuesday by clinging to a pole on a neighbour’s porch as the water rose up to his neck.

Molina’s home was hit by two major floods in 2018 and 2020 and he blamed authorities for allowing residential buildings to be built in ditches where water collects.

“We don’t want to live here anymore,” he said tearfully. “As soon as a few drops of rain fall, we start checking our phones.”

The floods have devastated Valencia’s infrastructure, washing away bridges, roads and rail tracks, and inundating agricultural land in the region that produces about two-thirds of Spain’s citrus crops such as oranges, which the country exports globally.

Transport Minister Oscar Puente said about 80 km (50 miles) of roads in the eastern region had been severely damaged or impassable. Many roads were blocked by abandoned cars.

“Unfortunately there are bodies in some vehicles,” Puente told reporters, adding that it would take two to three weeks to re-establish the high-speed train connection between Valencia and Madrid.

Visiting a rescue coordination center near the city of Valencia, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged people to stay at home because of the threat of more stormy weather.

“The most important thing right now is to save as many lives as possible,” he told reporters.

In the badly hit rural town of Utial, 85 kilometers (53 miles) away, the Magro river burst its banks, flooding mostly one-story homes with up to three meters (9.8 feet) of water.

Utial’s mayor, Ricardo Gabaldon, said at least six people had died in the town of about 12,000, most of them elderly or disabled people who were unable to climb to safety.

Residents used water pumps mounted on tractors to begin the cleanup on Thursday, with children helping to clear sidewalks. Ruined household appliances and furniture piled up in the middle of streets and elderly people struggled to walk on slippery, muddy roads.

Pope Francis said he was praying for the people of the region. “I am close to them in this time of disaster,” he said in a video posted on X.

Research group Climate Central said in a report Thursday that a low-pressure system behind Spain’s flooding had tapped into an “atmospheric river” carrying extra moisture from the unusually warm tropical Atlantic.

Human-caused climate change has made these elevated sea surface temperatures at least 50 to 300 times more likely, according to its Climate Shift Index: Ocean.

Kumud Sharma

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