Spain floods latest: Furious crowds chant ‘murderer’ and toss mud at King Felipe in crisis-hit Valencia visit
Death toll from country’s worst flood-related disaster in modern history rises to 214 and set to keep rising
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Your support makes all the difference.A furious crowd chanted “murderer” and tossed mud at King Felipe as he visited the areas worst affected by Spain’s worst ever flood-related disaster.
Footage shows the moment the King was surrounded by angry locals who are still reeling as the death toll from the floods reaches 217 - and is likely to continue climbing.
Police officers on horseback had to keep back the crowd of several dozen.
The King and his wife, Queen Letizia, visited Valencia on Sunday with prime minister Pedro Sanchez. They met local officials, emergency responders and civilians.
Thousands of troops have been mobilised in what Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez called the “biggest operation by the Armed Forces in Spain in peacetime”.
It comes as fears grow that large numbers of bodies remain trapped underwater - including in the entirely submerged underground car park of Bonaire shopping centre, one of the largest in Spain.
Specialist scuba divers are now searching for bodies in the car park.
Eduardo Martinez, who works in the shopping centre, told ElDiario.es that some “ignored” advice from a security guard not to collect their cars from an underground car park when the flooding began.
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Cars and furniture lay piled up in mud as Spain reels from deadly floods
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‘Cold drop’ and flood defences: What caused the devastating flash flooding in Spain?
Driver clings to car roof as water surges through roads
Why did these massive flash floods happen?
Scientists trying to explain what happened see two likely connections to human-caused climate change.
One is that warmer air holds and then dumps more rain. The other is possible changes in the jet stream - the river of air above land that moves weather systems across the globe - that spawn extreme weather.
Climate scientists and meteorologists said the immediate cause of the flooding is called a cut-off lower pressure storm system that migrated from an unusually wavy and stalled jet stream. That system simply parked over the region and poured rain.
This happens often enough that in Spain they call them Danas, the Spanish acronym for the system, meteorologists said.
Then there is the unusually high temperature of the Mediterranean Sea. It had its warmest surface temperature on record in mid-August, at 28.47C, said Carola Koenig of the Centre for Flood Risk and Resilience at Brunel University of London.
The extreme weather event came after Spain battled with prolonged droughts in 2022 and 2023. Experts say that drought and flood cycles are increasing with climate change.
Where are weather alerts in force as death toll hits 207?
Weather warnings are in force across swathes of Spain as further storms approach on the heels of devastating flooding which has claimed at least 211 lives – making it the country’s worst natural disaster in living memory.
Prime minister Pedro Sanchez has warned that the devastation caused by flash flooding is “not finished” as he declared Valencia a “disaster zone” on Thursday. Urging residents to remain in their homes, he said: “Right now the most important thing is to safeguard as many lives as possible.”
Cities such as Valencia and Malaga were inundated this week after nearly a year’s worth of rain – close to half a metre – fell in just eight hours in some areas, leaving residents “trapped like rats” in homes and cars, as described by one desperate local mayor recalling the chaos.
Read the full article here:
Spain floods mapped: Where are weather alerts in force as death toll hits 207?
New weather warnings issued in dozens of areas in Spain as prime minister warns devastation from flooding is ‘not finished’
Has this happened before?
Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this episode was the most powerful flash flood event in recent memory.
Older people in Paiporta, ground zero of the tragedy, claim that Tuesday’s floods were three times as bad as those of 1957, which caused at least 81 deaths and were the worst in the history of the tourist eastern region.
That episode led to the diversion of the Turia watercourse, which meant that a large part of the city was spared of these floods.
Valencia suffered two other major Danas in the 1980s, one in 1982, with around 30 deaths, and another one five years later, which broke rainfall records.
This week’s flash floods are also Spain’s deadliest natural tragedy in living memory, surpassing the flood that swept away a campsite along the Gallego river in Biescas, in the north-east, killing 87 people in August 1996.
Expat teacher in Spain still trapped after flood waters surround town and food runs out
An expat teacher living south of Valencia in Spain says he is unable to leave his town due to being “surrounded by water” following flash flooding in the region.
John Fahy, 55, who lives in a seaside town called Cullera, also reported there being no food in the supermarkets, with no new supplies expected for a while.
At least 211 people have been killed in Spain’s worst flooding disaster this century, with rescue workers searching for bodies in stranded cars and sodden buildings.
Read the full article here:
Expat teacher in Spain still trapped after flood waters surround town near Valencia
John Fahy described driving home during the worst of the storm, which hit southern Spain on Tuesday.
Death toll rises to 214 people
The deadliest flash floods in Spain’s modern history have killed at least 214 people and dozens were still unaccounted for, four days after torrential rains swept the eastern region of Valencia.
Regional authorities said on Saturday night the total number of fatalities in the region was 211, plus two from Castilla La Mancha and one in Andalusia.
The tragedy is already Europe’s worst flood-related disaster since 1967 when at least 500 people died in Portugal.
Cars and furniture lay piled up in mud as Spain reels
Cars and furniture lay piled up in mud as Spain reels from deadly floods
Cars, furniture, and white goods lay piled up in mud on the streets of Alfafar, Spain, on Saturday, 2 November as the country reeled from catastrophic flooding. At least 205 people have died in the extreme weather conditions as fresh weather warnings for rain prompt fears of further flooding. Around 202 of those killed were in the hardest-hit region of Valencia alone. The death toll rose significantly on Friday as rescue workers continued to search for missing people. Those impacted the worst by the flash flooding in eastern Spain are expecting more rain, as yellow and amber weather warnings remain in place.
Is it safe to travel to Spain and should I cancel my holiday after flooding disaster?
Eastern Spain has been hit with devastating flash flooding this week, the worst flooding disaster the area has experienced in decades.
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 211 people have lost their lives after the flooding swept through streets, turning walkways into rivers and trapping people in their homes and on the roofs of cars.
It is the worst flood-related catastrophe Spain has witnessed since at least 1996, when 87 people died and 180 were injured in a flash flood near Biescas in the Pyrenees.
Read the full article here:
Is it safe to travel to Spain? Should I cancel my holiday?
Flooding has severly impacted the Valencia region, with more rain on the way in the the southwest in Huelva
What has the state response been?
The management of the crisis, classified as level two on a scale of three by the Valencian government, is in the hands of the regional authorities, who can ask the central government for help in mobilising resources.
At the request of Valencia’s president, Carlos Mazon, of the conservative Popular Party, socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Saturday the deployment of 5,000 more soldiers who will join rescue efforts, clear debris and provide water and food over the weekend.
The government will also send 5,000 more national police officers to the region, Mr Sanchez said.
At present there are some 2,000 soldiers from the military emergency unit, the army’s first intervention force for natural disasters and humanitarian crises, involved in the emergency work, as well as almost 2,500 Civil Guard gendarmes - who have carried out 4,500 rescues during the floods - and 1,800 national police officers.
When many of those affected said they felt abandoned by the authorities, a wave of volunteers took to the streets to help.
Children’s daycare owner says they have lost ‘everything’
A children’s daycare was ruined when a crushing wall of water swept through Paiporta, turning the Valencia municipality of 30,000 into the likely epicenter of Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory.
“We have lost everything,” Xavi Pons told The Associated Press. He said the water level was above his head inside what had been the daycare run by his wife’s family for half a century, and he pointed to the knee-high mark where the mud reached.
“I have lived here all my life. This had never happened and nobody could have imagined it would,” Pons said. “All of Paiporta is like this, it is all in ruins.”
Authorities say at least 62 people died in Paiporta, of the 211 confirmed deaths from flash floods in Spain on Tuesday and Wednesday. The majority of those deaths happened in the eastern region of Valencia, and local media have labeled Paiporta the “ground zero” of the floods.
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