Massive floods claim 95 lives and devastate Spanish region – Indianapolis News | Weather Indiana | Indiana traffic

BARRIO DE LA TORRE, Spain (AP) — Survivors of the worst natural disaster to hit Spain this century woke up to devastating scenes Thursday after villages were wiped out by monstrous flash floods that claimed at least 95 lives.

The death toll is expected to rise as search efforts continue, with officials removing bodies from buildings and vehicles and an unknown number of people still missing.

“Unfortunately, there are dead people in some vehicles,” Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said, referring to hundreds of cars and trucks stranded on roads brown with mud.

The aftermath resembled the damage left by a strong hurricane or tsunami.

Cars piled on top of each other like broken toys, uprooted trees, fallen power lines and household items, all mired in a layer of mud, covered the streets of Barrio de la Torre, a Valencia suburb, just one of dozens of places badly affected . region of Valencia, where 92 people died between late Tuesday and Wednesday morning.

Walls of rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that entered the ground floors of houses, sweeping away cars, people and everything else in their path. The floods have toppled bridges and rendered roads unrecognizable.

“The neighborhood is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it is literally destroyed,” said Christian Viena, the owner of a destroyed bar in Barrio de la Torre.

Regional authorities said late on Wednesday that it appeared no one was stranded on rooftops or in cars in need of rescue, after helicopters rescued some 70 people. But ground crews and civilians continued to inspect vehicles and homes damaged by the onslaught of water.

“Our priority is to find the victims and the missing so that we can help end the suffering of their families,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Thursday after a meeting with regional officials and emergency services in Valencia, the first of three days of official mourning. in the European country.

Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding. But this was the most powerful flash flood in recent history. Scientists link it to climate change, which is also responsible for increasing temperatures and droughts in Spain and the warming of the Mediterranean Sea.

While the greatest suffering was inflicted on municipalities near the city of Valencia, the storms unleashed their fury on large parts of the southern and eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. Two fatalities were reported in the neighboring region of Castilla La Mancha. Southern Andalusia reported one death.

Homes were left without water as far south as Malaga, Andalusia, where a high-speed train derailed on Tuesday evening, although none of the nearly 300 passengers were injured.

Greenhouses and farms across southern Spain, known as the Garden of Europe for its exported produce, were also devastated by heavy rains and flooding. The storms caused a bizarre tornado in Valencia and a hail storm that punched holes in cars in Andalusia.

The heavy rain continued further north on Thursday and the Spanish weather agency issued a red alert for several provinces in Castellón, the northernmost province in the Valencia region, and an orange alert for southern Tarragona, in northeastern Catalonia, and the west coast of Cádiz. throughout the country in the southwest.

“This storm front is still with us,” Sánchez said. “Stay at home and follow the official recommendation and you will help save lives.”

The search continues amid the destruction

More than a thousand soldiers from Spanish emergency rescue units joined regional and local aid workers in the search for bodies and survivors. By Wednesday evening, soldiers had recovered 22 bodies and rescued 110 people.

“We are searching house by house,” Ángel Martínez from a military emergency unit told Spanish national radio station RNE from the town of Utiel, where at least six people were killed.

About 150,000 people in Valencia were without electricity on Wednesday, but about half had electricity on Thursday, Spanish news agency EFE reported. An unknown number did not have running water. Many bought whatever bottled water they could find.

People walked past stranded cars blocking the roads. The region remained partially isolated with several roads cut and train lines disrupted, including the high-speed service to Madrid, which officials say will not be repaired for several days.

A man cried at images shown by national broadcaster RTVE as he showed the shell of what was once the ground floor of his home in Catarroja, a town south of Valencia. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside and destroyed his furniture and belongings, even removing the paint from some walls and leaving mud in its wake.

Officials questioned late flood warnings

The violent weather took regional government officials by surprise. Spain’s national weather service said it rained more in eight hours in the Valencian city of Chiva than in the previous 20 months, calling the deluge “extraordinary.”

Yet the relative calm of the next day also gave time to reflect and wonder whether the authorities could have done more to limit the damage. The Valencian regional government is being criticized for only sending flood warnings to people’s mobile phones at 8pm on Tuesday, even though flooding had already started in some parts and long after the national weather agency issued a red alert for heavy rain.

Andreu Salom, mayor of the Valencian village of L’Alcudia, told RTVE that his town had lost at least two residents, a daughter and her elderly mother who lived together, and that police were still searching for the missing truck driver.

He also complained that he and his residents were not warned about the disaster, which occurred on Tuesday evening when the Magro River burst its banks.

“I was on my way to check the river level because I had no information,” Salom said. “I went with the local police, but we had to turn back because a tsunami of water, mud, reeds and dirt was already entering the city.”

Mari Carmen Pérez said on the phone from Barrio de la Torre that her phone buzzed with the flood warning after the rushing water had already broken open the front door and filled her living room, kitchen and bathroom, forcing her family to flee upstairs.

“They had no idea what was going on,” said Pérez, a professional cleaner. “Everything is ruined. The people here, we have never seen anything like this.”

Valencia regional president Carlos Mazón defended his government’s management of the crisis, saying “all our supervisors followed the standard protocol.”

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Wilson reported from Barcelona, ​​Spain. Associated Press writer Teresa Medrano in Madrid contributed to this report.