Spain hunts for missing after deadly floods, more storms forecast

By David Latona

UTIEL, Spain (Reuters) -Spanish rescue teams scoured flooded homes and stranded cars on Thursday for those still missing after devastating floods in the Valencia region that killed at least 95 people, with forecasts of more bad weather prompting storm alerts further north.

Local authorities have not disclosed how many people are still unaccounted for after Europe’s deadliest floods in years, but Defence Minister Margarita Robles said the death toll was likely to rise.

Rescuers used helicopters to winch survivors to safety in areas that were still flooded and combed through thick silt and the wreckage of vehicles in search of bodies.

Diggers and tractors equipped with water pumps were brought in to clear debris from the streets, as residents took stock of the destruction with disbelief, television footage showed.

The floods battered Valencia’s infrastructure, sweeping away bridges, roads and rail tracks and submerging farmland in a region that produces about two-thirds of the citrus fruit grown in Spain, a leading global exporter of oranges.

“There’s nothing left,” said student Natalia Perez, 21, as she surveyed a badly damaged historic bridge in Torrent near the city of Valencia, Spain’s third-largest. “This bridge was gorgeous.”

About 80 km (50 miles) of roads in the eastern region were seriously damaged or impassable, said Transport Minister Oscar Puente. Many were blocked by abandoned cars.

“Unfortunately there are dead 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.

YEAR’S WORTH OF RAIN

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

Meteorologists said a year’s worth of rain had fallen in eight hours in parts of Valencia on Tuesday.

Residents described seeing people clambering onto the roofs of their cars as a churning tide of brown water gushed through the streets, uprooting trees and dragging away chunks of masonry from buildings.

The storm that caused the torrential downpours has since moved in a northeasterly direction.

Calm weather returned on Thursday to the hardest-hit areas around the city of Valencia, but the AEMET state weather agency issued its highest level of alert for the province of Castellon. Further north in the Catalonia region, an amber alert was issued for the city of Tarragona.

“There are already very strong storms in the area, especially in the north of Castellon,” AEMET posted on its X account, saying people should not travel to the area.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited a rescue coordination centre in L’Eliana, near Valencia’s capital, and urged people to stay at home due to the threat of more stormy weather.

“Right now the most important thing is to safeguard as many lives as possible,” he told reporters.

RESIDENTS COUNT LOSSES

In the hard-hit rural town of Utiel, some 85 km (53 miles) inland, the Magro river burst its banks, sending up to three metres (9.8 feet) of water into homes, which are mostly single-storey.

Utiel’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 clamber to safety.

Residents used water pumps carried on tractors as they started to clean up early on Thursday, with children helping to sweep the sidewalks. Ruined household appliances and furniture were piled up in the middle of roads and elderly people struggled to walk in the slippery, mud-coated streets.

At first light, resident Jose Julian Collado returned to his hometown to help clean up. “This (street) was full of people and today it’s still empty. It is utter desolation,” he said.

Pope Francis said he was praying for the people of the region. “I’m close to them in this moment of catastrophe,” he said in a video posted on X.

The floods have also wrecked crops and killed livestock.

Utiel residents Javier Iranzo, 47, and Ana Carmen Fernandez, 48, told Reuters the flooding had completely wrecked their pig farm, with 50 of their animals having drowned.

They estimated the catastrophe had caused hundreds of thousands of euros of damages and, despite government pledges of help, said they worried about whether they would receive state aid to help rebuild.

As climate change is linked to more frequent bouts of extreme weather, Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said the Valencia floods showed the need for greater public awareness of the dangers.

“People… don’t have the information they need to keep themselves and their families safe. We could see that people were putting themselves at risk driving in flood waters and there was just so much water that it has overwhelmed these places,” she said.

(Reporting by David Latona, Emma Pinedo and Inti Landauro; Writing by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Helen Popper)