At least 72 people die in devastating flash floods in eastern Spain

By JOSEPH WILSON and TERESA MEDRANO
Associated Press

BARCELONA, Spain — Flash floods in Spain swept away cars, turned village streets into rivers, disrupted rail lines and highways and killed at least 72 people in the worst natural disaster to hit the European nation in recent memory.

Rainstorms that started Tuesday and continued Wednesday caused flooding in a wide swath of southern and eastern Spain, stretching from Malaga to Valencia. Muddy torrents tumbled vehicles down streets at high speeds, while pieces of wood swirled in the water alongside household items. Police and rescue services used helicopters to lift people from their homes and rubber boats to reach drivers stranded atop cars.

Emergency services in the eastern region of Valencia confirmed a death toll of 70 people on Wednesday. Another two casualties were reported in the neighboring Castilla La Mancha region.

“Yesterday was the worst day of my life,” Ricardo Gabaldón, the mayor of Utiel, a town in Valencia, told national broadcaster RTVE on Wednesday. He said six residents had perished and several more are unaccounted for.

“We were trapped like rats. Cars and trash containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to 3 meters (9.8 feet),” he said.

Spain’s government declared three days of mourning starting 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.

Rescue personnel and more than 1,100 soldiers from Spain’s emergency response units were deployed to affected areas. Spain’s central government set up a crisis committee to coordinate rescue efforts.

The elderly were the most vulnerable. RTVE broadcast footage of seniors at a nursing home in chairs and wheelchairs with waters rising over their knees, and a military unit rescuing an elderly couple from the top story of their house in the bucket of a bulldozer.

Television reports showed videos shot by panicked residents showing waters flooding the ground floors of apartment buildings, streams bursting their banks and bridges giving way. People gasped as they pointed to what they feared could be bodies bobbing in the swift brown flood.

Spain’s national weather service called the rainfall “extraordinary" in parts of Valencia.

Located south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast, Valencia is a tourist destination known for its beaches, citrus orchards, and as the origin of paella. The region has gorges and small riverbeds that spend much of the year completely dry but quickly fill with water when it rains. Many of them pass through populated areas.

Spain has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years. Nothing, however, compared to the devastation over the last two days, which recalls floods in Germany and Belgium in 2021 in which 230 people were killed.

The death toll will likely rise with other regions yet to report victims and search efforts continuing in hard-to-reach places.

“We are facing a very difficult situation,” minister of territory policies Ángel Víctor Torres said. “The fact that we can’t give a number of the missing persons indicates the magnitude of the tragedy.”