A view shows a queue of vehicles in an area affected by heavy rains that caused flooding near Valencia, Spain.
| Photo Credit: NACHO DOCE

Some 93 people are listed as missing after devastating floods ravaged southeastern Spain over a week ago, killing more than 200, regional judicial authorities in Valencia said on Wednesday.

Valencia’s superior court of justice had on Tuesday listed 89 people as missing but said another four missing persons had been reported to law enforcement officers on Wednesday.

The worst floods to hit Spain in a generation have killed at least 219 people, mostly in the Valencia region.

That figure is expected to rise with many of the missing people presumed to have died, although the court said that authorities have not ruled out finding some of them alive.

Search and rescue operations on Wednesday targeted underground garages and waterways in the Valencia region.

The 15,000 police and soldiers deployed to the region have been helping clean up the devastation and repair roads and infrastructure.

Spain’s government on Tuesday announced an aid package worth 10.6 billion euros ($11.5 billion) to rebuild the devastated regions.

On Wednesday, the European Investment Bank also pledged 900 million euros to finance reconstruction in the affected regions.

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Madrid:

Rescuers raised the death toll in Spain’s worst floods for a generation to 205 on Friday and fears grew for the dozens missing as hopes of finding survivors faded.

The floods that have tossed vehicles, collapsed bridges and covered towns with mud since Tuesday are the European country’s deadliest such disaster in decades.

The organisation coordinating emergency services in the hardest-hit eastern Valencia region said 202 people had been confirmed dead there.

Officials in neighbouring Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia in the south had already announced a combined three deaths in their regions.

Rescuers equipped with helicopters, drones and sniffer dogs waded through water and rummaged through debris in search of dozens of people the authorities believe are still missing.

The government has deployed another 500 troops to the stricken areas to bolster the 1,200 already on site for search, rescue and logistics tasks. Another 500 will be dispatched on Saturday.

The Civil Guard alone had rescued more than 4,500 people as of Friday afternoon, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.

But three days on from the disaster, hopes of finding more survivors are dwindling.

The courthouse in Valencia city has been converted into a morgue, where health workers wearing smocks carried stretchers covered with white sheets.

 ‘People are desperate’ 

Some cut-off areas went without water, food or power for days after the floods began, and many roads and railways remain inaccessible.

Engineers worked to remove abandoned cars strewn over warped railway tracks and slabs of tarmac from destroyed roads littered inundated fields, AFP journalists saw.

French volunteers also announced their staff had arrived in Spain on Friday bringing equipment to help clear debris, pump water and rescue victims.

In the devastated town of Paiporta near Valencia city, some residents complained aid was coming too slowly and frustrating the efforts of volunteers.

“There aren’t enough firefighters, the shovels haven’t arrived,” Paco Clemente, a 33-year-old pharmacist, told AFP as he helped clear mud from a friend’s house.

Thousands of people remain cut off from the electricity and telephone networks, but it is hoped the estimated number of missing people will fall once connections are restored.

With several places seeing signs of order breaking down, government minister Angel Victor Torres on Thursday vowed an uncompromising response to looting.

Police said they had arrested 50 people for incidents including theft from vehicles and a jewellery store.

In the Valencia region town of Aldaia, Fernando Lozano told AFP he saw thieves grabbing items from an abandoned supermarket as “people are a bit desperate”.

“Until things return to normal and the supermarket opens, it’s going to be very bad here.”

Sports centres and schools were among the sites being used for emergency food distribution, Valencia region leader Carlos Mazon told reporters.

– Wave of solidarity –

An army of thousands of volunteers set off from Valencia on Friday armed with shovels, buckets and shopping trolleys laden with food and nappies to help distressed neighbours in the city’s flooded suburbs.

Among them was Federico Martinez, a 55-year-old engineer who headed to help Paiporta residents clear their town of mud.

“We took what we had at home, and now it’s time to help. It’s emotional, it gives you goosebumps,” he told AFP.

Helpers also flocked to Valencia football club’s Mestalla stadium where volunteers formed human chains to collect mountains of essential supplies.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hailed “the limitless solidarity and dedication of Spanish society” on X and pledged aid “for as long as it takes”.

But the Valencia regional government urged people to stay at home, saying they risked holding up the emergency services rushing to the worst-affected areas.

Pope Francis expressed his solidarity with the victims and their families in Spain, historically a deeply Catholic country.

Sanchez will on Saturday chair another meeting of a special committee made up of top cabinet ministers to follow the crisis.

Marlaska has been sent to Valencia to facilitate the cooperation between the central government and regional authorities in Spain’s highly decentralised state.

The storm that sparked the floods formed as cold air moved over the warm waters of the Mediterranean and is common for the time of year.

But scientists warn climate change driven by human activity is increasing the ferocity, length and frequency of such extreme weather events.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Sedavi:

Rescuers raced Thursday to find survivors and victims of once-in-a-generation floods in Spain that killed at least 95 people and left towns submerged in a muddy deluge with overturned cars scattered in the streets.

About 1,000 troops joined police and firefighters in the grim search for bodies in the Valencia region as Spain started three days of mourning. The toll will rise because “there are many missing people”, territorial policy minister Angel Victor Torres predicted late Wednesday.

Up to a year’s rain fell in a few hours on the eastern city of Valencia and surrounding region on Tuesday sending torrents of water and mud through towns and cities.

Authorities said Paiporta, in the Valencia suburbs, had been devastated with about 40 people dead, including a mother and baby swept away by a torrent.

Rescuers have scrambled to get survivors off roofs with helicopters while others have searched houses some with water up to their necks. 

As dawn rose Thursday, tens of thousands of homes were still without electricity and drinking water and many roads were blocked by the carcasses of hundreds of cars and trucks swept away in sudden torrents. 

Emergency services carried out 200 rescues on the ground and 70 aerial evacuations on Wednesday, said Valencia regional government chief Carlos Mazon.

Valencia’s emergency services announced a provisional death toll of 92, adding that bodies were still being recovered. Two people died in neighbouring Castilla-La Mancha and another victim was reported in Andalusia in the south, officials said.

A sea of piled-up cars and mud swamped streets in Sedavi, a suburb of the Mediterranean city of Valencia, AFP journalists saw.

Stunned residents battled to clear sludge and water from their homes. 

‘Spain weeps’

In Ribarroja del Turia on the outskirts of Valencia city, town councillor Esther Gomez said workers were stuck overnight in an industrial estate “without a chance of rescuing them” as streams overflowed.

“It had been a long time since this happened and we’re scared,” she told AFP.

According to Spain’s weather service AEMET, Chiva, west of Valencia, recorded 491 mm of rain in just eight hours on Tuesday — almost equalling a year’s worth.

“All of Spain weeps with all of you… We won’t abandon you,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told victims and their families in a televised address.

Sanchez was to head for Valencia on Thursday.

The disaster could not be considered over and “we will deploy all the necessary resources for as long as necessary so that we can recover from this tragedy,” he added.

King Felipe VI said he was “devastated” by the disaster and offered “heartfelt condolences” to families of the victims.

Damage to telephone networks and flooded roads hampered efforts to reach stricken communities but rescuers’ access to all urban hubs was restored by Wednesday evening, Mazon said.

Some 155,000 homes were without electricity in Valencia region due to the storm, energy company Iberdrola said.

The European Union activated its Copernicus satellite system to help coordinate Spanish rescue teams, EU commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in Brussels.

The bloc has also offered to use its civil protection mechanism to send further reinforcements, she said.

Warning system scrutinised

Officials in the Valencia region announced survivors were being sheltered in temporary accommodation such as fire stations.

Rail and air transport remained severely disrupted. The high-speed line between Valencia and Madrid will be suspended for at least four days, the Adif rail infrastructure authority announced.

The flood toll is Spain’s deadliest since 1973 when at least 150 people were estimated to have died in the southeastern provinces of Granada, Murcia and Almeria.

Scientists have warned that extreme weather events such as the storm that hit Valencia are becoming more intense, last longer and occur more frequently as a result of human-induced climate change.

Such extremes “can overwhelm the ability of existing defences and contingency plans to cope, even in a relatively wealthy country like Spain”, said Leslie Mabon, senior lecturer in environmental systems at Britain’s Open University.

The heavy death toll came after warnings for extreme rainfall, suggesting Valencia’s flood alert system failed, said Hannah Cloke, hydrology professor at the University of Reading.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)