Spain floods: Death toll at 207 as police fear more bodies hidden among destruction

The deadly floods left cars piled up like toys in streets, swallowed homes, and covered entire neighbourhoods in sludge and debris.

Climate Correspondent Stuti Mishra reports:

Some 500 soldiers have been deployed to search for people who are still missing and help survivors of the storm.

Officials said the death toll is likely to keep rising in what is already Spain’s worst flood-related disaster in modern history and the deadliest to hit Europe since the 1970s, with most of the deaths so far in Valencia, the eastern region that bore the brunt of the devastation.

Emergency services working to clear cars piled up at the entrance of a flooded underpass in the suburbs feared finding more trapped bodies. “We’re trying to remove vehicles bit by bit to see if there are victims,” one rescue worker told state television. “We don’t know.”

The death toll from the devastating flash floods in Spain has risen again – from 205 to 207, the interior minister has confirmed.

According to local media, Fernando Grande-Marlaska told the Spanish radio station Hora 25: “The update is that there are 207 confirmed victims.”

He added: “It is impossible to know the number of missing people and it would not be prudent for me to give a figure.”

Effective flood warning systems could help to avoid the level of destruction that has occurred in the Valencia region of Spain this week, the World Meteorological Organisation said on Friday.

“We do need to ensure that the early warnings reach those who need them,” WMO official Clare Ms Nullis told a regular UN briefing. “We need to ensure that early warnings lead to informed early action.”

Ms Nullis declined to comment on whether Madrid had acted too slowly in warning residents about the floods, saying only that it was something that “Spanish authorities need to examine”.

Rainstorms started on Tuesday (29 October) and continued into Wednesday. In the aftermath of the floods, cars have been piled on the street surrounded by a sea of debris from damaged buildings and structures.

At least 95 people have lost their lives after the flooding swept through streets, turning walkways into rivers and trapping people in their homes and on car roofs.

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Residents and rescue workers lamented the scale of devastation in the worst floods in Europe since the 1970s as anger mounted over what some said was a lack of preparation.

Emergency services working to clear cars piled up at the entrance of a flooded underpass in the Valencia suburbs feared finding more trapped bodies.

“We’re trying to remove vehicles bit by bit to see if there are victims,” one rescue worker told state television. “We don’t know.”

Resident Isabel Santiago, 49, watched the scene with tears in her eyes: “There have been so many losses, which could have been avoided. There must be a lot of people in that tunnel because they didn’t have time to get out. This is inhuman.”

Valencia’s regional government said people seeking to help should gather at the capital’s Arts and Sciences museum complex at 7am on Saturday to ease coordination.

In Alfafar, a suburb outside the city of Valencia, Spain‘s third-largest, drone footage showed the tangled wreckage of dozens of vehicles strewn across rail tracks.

Valencia resident Hector Bolivar, 65, questioned why a text message alert was only sent out at 8 pm when the heavy rain had begun several hours earlier.

Regional leader Carlos Mazon said all protocols for disaster management were followed and that authorities had begun warning people from Sunday.

More than 90 per cent of the households in eastern Spain hit by catastrophic floods regained power on Friday, utility company Iberdrola said, even as thousands still lacked electricity in areas completely cut off.

The death toll from the unprecedented floods rose to 205 people, with 200 of them killed in Valencia, the eastern region that bore the brunt of the devastation.

Spanish rescuers opened a temporary morgue in a convention centre and battled to reach areas still cut off on Friday to provide aid and support to the people.

Some 500 soldiers were deployed to search for people who are still missing and help survivors of the storm, which triggered a fresh weather alert in the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia, where rains are expected to continue during the weekend.

Officials said the death toll is likely to keep rising.