The death toll from devastating flash floods in eastern Spain reached 158 on Thursday, with rescuers still searching for missing persons in what could be Europe's worst natural disaster in five decades, UNN reports citing Reuters.
A total of 158 people, to which should be added dozens and dozens of missing persons
On Thursday, rescuers found the bodies of eight people, including a local police officer, trapped in a garage on the outskirts of the city of Valencia, Mayor Maria Jose Catala told reporters.
According to her, a 45-year-old woman was also found dead in her home in the same neighborhood of La Torre.
On Thursday, thousands of people could be seen carrying bags or pushing shopping carts as they crossed the pedestrian bridge over the Turia River from La Torre to the center of Valencia to stock up on essentials such as toilet paper and water.
Opposition politicians accused the central government in Madrid of acting too slowly to warn residents and send rescue teams, prompting the Interior Ministry to say that regional authorities are responsible for civil protection measures.
Maribel Albalat, mayor of the neighboring town of Paiporta, said residents had not been warned of the impending flood. She said 62 people had died in her town.
"We found a lot of elderly people in their homes and people who had gone to get their cars. It was a trap," she told TVE.
The floods destroyed Valencia's infrastructure, washing away bridges, roads and railroad tracks, and flooded farmland in a region that produces about two-thirds of Spain's citrus crops, such as oranges, which the country exports worldwide.
About 80 kilometers of roads in the eastern region were severely damaged or impassable, said Transportation Minister Oscar Puente. Many of them were blocked by abandoned cars.
"Unfortunately, there are corpses in some of the vehicles," Puente said, adding that it would take two to three weeks to restore high-speed rail service between Valencia and Madrid.
Visiting a rescue coordination center near the city of Valencia, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged people to stay home as more stormy weather threatens. "The most important thing now is to save as many lives as possible," he said.
In the hard-hit rural town of Utiel, about 85 kilometers from the coast, the Magro River burst its banks, flooding mostly one-story houses with up to three meters of water.
Util's mayor, Ricardo Gabaldon, said at least six people were killed in the city of about 12,000, most of them elderly or disabled, who were unable to get to safety.
Addendum
On October 29, Tuesday, in some parts of the Valencia region, annual rainfall fell in eight hours.
This tragedy has already become the worst flood-related natural disaster in Spain in modern history, and meteorologists say that anthropogenic climate change is making such extreme weather events more frequent and more destructive.
In 2021, severe flooding in Germany killed at least 185 people. Before that, 209 people died in Romania in 1970, and about 500 people died in floods in Portugal in 1967.