Spain floods latest: towns destroyed and cars piled up as prime minister warns ‘stay at home’
By Guardian-Luke Jacobs /Hamish Mackay-Thu 31 Oct 2024 14.15 GMT
At least 95 people have been killed with more rain forecast for the flood-hit region of Valencia. Death toll expected to rise amid anger over preparedness.
Spain's prime minister urges people to 'please stay at home' during rescue effort
As we reported earlier, Pedro Sánchez has arrived in Valencia and has been speaking to the media.
“The priority right now is to find those who are missing in order to alleviate the anguish that families are suffering,” he told reporters. “We will support the search by land, sea and air for as long as it takes to find all of the missing people.”
“Please, the storm continues, please stay at home. Please heed all calls from the emergency services, their needs, their recommendations.
“The most important thing is to save as many lives as possible. The AEMET is issuing alerts, I ask that these recommendations be heeded.”
2m ago14.15 GMT
We would like to hear from people in Spain about the impact of the flooding. Have you been affected by the recent flooding? How are you coping? We would like to hear about your experiences.
You can tell us how you have been affected by the flooding using the fortm on this link:
25m ago13.51 GMT
The satellite image comparison below shows just how badly impacted Valencia was by the torrential rain.
The top picture – captured by the NASA/USGS Landsat 8 Earth observation satellite – above the white line shows Valencia on October 13.
The lower image, below the white line, is the same city on October 30 after the rain caused flash floods.
40m ago13.36 GMT
Our video team have produced this, showing shocking footage of a bridge being washed away in Valencia.
46m ago13.31 GMT
'Not a business standing' in Valencia suburb
Agence France-Presse have a dispatch from Paiporta, a suburb of Valencia city at the epicentre of the damage, where 27-year-old musician David Romero lamented a “catastrophe”.
“Neighbourhood after neighbourhood, street after street, there is not a business standing,” he told AFP.
Romero said the warnings in Paiporta only arrived when the local river was already overflowing and catching people off guard in the streets, a complaint echoed by 21-year-old Joaquin Rigon.
“Nobody warned of anything... they took out the owner of the bar here dead, drowned, chaos,” he said.
1h ago13.10 GMT
Spain floods: What we know so far
If you’re just joining our coverage today here’s a brief round-up of the situation in Spain. Stay with us while we keep you updated
- The number of people killed by yesterday’s flash floods in eastern Spain stands at 95, with the toll expected to rise as the search continues
- Rescue workers, residents and the military have been working at pace in a bid to find survivors and to clean-up after yesterday’s floods. There are no confirmed numbers of those missing
- Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez has urged people to stay at home and has said they will search for as long as it takes to find any survivors
- More rain is forecast, with parts of Valencia notably, subject to an AEMET yellow weather warning for more rain on Thursday
1h ago12.50 GMT
These pictures – just coming into us now – show the extent of the clean-up operation taking place in Valencia and north and eastern parts of Spain hit by yesterday’s deadly floods.
Streets are caked in mud, cars are stranded and homes have been severely damaged by yesterday’s torrential rainfall.
2h ago12.29 GMT
The flags at the European Commission have been flown at half mast today.
EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen has offered Spain support in the wake of yesterday’s flooding
Spain's prime minister urges people to 'please stay at home' during rescue effort
As we reported earlier, Pedro Sánchez has arrived in Valencia and has been speaking to the media.
“The priority right now is to find those who are missing in order to alleviate the anguish that families are suffering,” he told reporters. “We will support the search by land, sea and air for as long as it takes to find all of the missing people.”
“Please, the storm continues, please stay at home. Please heed all calls from the emergency services, their needs, their recommendations.
“The most important thing is to save as many lives as possible. The AEMET is issuing alerts, I ask that these recommendations be heeded.”
3h ago11.46 GMT
'It's literally smashed up': communities in Valencia count cost of flood damage
More now on the impact of the floods on communities in regions in and around Valencia.
“Unfortunately, there are dead people inside some vehicles,” said Spain’s transport minister Óscar Puente in reference to hundreds of cars and trucks stranded on roads stained brown with mud.
The aftermath of the floods looked eerily similar to the damage left by a strong hurricane or tsunami.
Cars piled on one another like broken toys, uprooted trees, downed power lines and household items all mired in a layer of mud covered the streets of Barrio de la Torre, just one of dozens of damaged localities in the hard-hit region, where 92 people died between late Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
Walls of rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that ripped into the ground floors of homes and swept away cars, people and anything else in its path. It knocked down bridges and made roads unrecognisable.
“The neighbourhood is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it’s literally smashed up,” said Christian Viena, a bar owner in Barrio de la Torre.
Ground crews and citizens continued to inspect vehicles and homes that were damaged by the onslaught of water.
3h ago11.25 GMT
A visual guide to the flash floods in Spain
Why were yesterday’s floods in Spain so bad?
Ninety-five people are dead, an unknown number of people remain missing, while thousands of others are without electricity or phone service.
The intense rain was attributed to a phenomenon known as the gota fría, or “cold drop”, which occurs when cold air moves over the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
This creates atmospheric instability as the warm, moist air rising rapidly to form towering, dense clouds capable of dumping heavy rain.
See below for a visual guide to yesterday’s devastating events
Why were the floods in Spain so bad? A visual guide
3h ago11.13 GMT
Let’s return now to the rescue efforts currently ongoing in north and eastern Spain.
More than one thousand soldiers from Spain’s emergency rescue units joined regional and local emergency workers in the search for survivors.
Spain’s defence minister said that soldiers alone had recovered 22 bodies and rescued 110 people by Wednesday night.
“We are searching house by house,” Ángel Martínez, official of a military emergency unit, told Spain’s national radio broadcaster RNE on Thursday from the town of Utiel, where at least six people died.
As we reported earlier, prime minister Pedro Sánchez is heading to the region to witness the destruction first-hand as the nation starts a three-day period of official mourning.
Thousands of people were left without water and electricity and hundreds were stranded after their cars were wrecked or roads were blocked.
4h ago10.39 GMT
In the rural town of Utiel, some 85 km from the city of Valencia, the Magro river burst its banks, sending up to three metres of water into homes, reports the Reuters news agency.
Utiel’s mayor, Ricardo Gabaldon said at least six people had died in the town of about 12,000, most of them elderly or disabled people who were unable to clamber to safety. Early on Thursday, residents used water pumps carried on tractors as they started the clean-up, with children helping to sweep the sidewalks.
“The sorrow is for the people who have died,” said Encarna, a 60-year-old teacher in the town, wiping away tears as she spoke in a flood-ravaged street near her damaged home.
“These are my savings, my effort, my life. But we are alive.”
The floods have also wrecked crops and killed livestock.
Utiel residents Javier Iranzo, 47, and Ana Carmen Fernandez, 48, told Reuters the flooding had completely wrecked their pig farm, with 50 of their animals having drowned.
They estimated hundreds of thousands of euros worth of damages and, despite government pledges of help, said they worried about whether they would receive state aid to help rebuild.
Updated at 10.43 GMT4h ago10.26 GMT
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez is due to make a visit to Valencia later today – we’ll keep you updated when that happens.
He has thanked EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen and UN general secretary António Guterres for their support.
Here’s a reminder of what he had to say after the floods hit:
4h ago10.02 GMT
Bodies 'trapped in cars', says country's transport minister
Rescuers today face the painstaking process of searching stranded cars for any survivors of yesterday’s flash floods, with these pictures of a motorway in Valencia showing the aftermath of the torrential rain.
Spain’s transport minister has said bodies of dead are still likely to be trapped in vehicles.
Updated at 10.47 GMT5h ago09.42 GMT
Weather alert remains in place as forecasters warn crews to 'beware'
Pictures coming in from Valencia show relatively calm conditions as the clean-up and search for survivors continues. But as we touched on in our post at 9.17GMT, a weather warning has been issued for part of the region already devastated by yesterday’s tragedy.
The AEMET state weather agency issued its highest level of alert for the province of Castellon. Further north in the Catalonia region, an amber alert was issued for the city of Tarragona.
Meteorologists said a year’s worth of rain had fallen in eight hours in parts of Valencia on Tuesday. The storm that caused the torrential downpours has since moved in a northeasterly direction.
“There are already very strong storms in the area, especially in the north of Castellon,” AEMET posted on its X account. “The adverse weather continues! Beware!” it added, saying people should not travel to the area.
Local authorities have not disclosed how many people are still unaccounted for after Europe’s deadliest floods in years, but Defence Minister Margarita Robles said late on Wednesday the death toll was likely to rise.
Updated at 09.55 GMT5h ago09.24 GMT
Did Spain’s weather warning system fail Valencia?
More heavy rain is predicted for the hardest-hit eastern Valencia region and other areas on the north-east coast today.
National weather agency AEMET launched a red alert for Valencia region on Tuesday morning and conditions deteriorated throughout the day.
But it was only in the early evening that the regional body in charge of coordinating the emergency services was set up.
And an alert sent by the civil protection service urging residents in the Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia not to leave home was issued after 8pm.
For many, it was already too late. Motorists began journeys only to find themselves trapped on roads and left at the mercy of raging torrents of water.
“They raised the alarm when the water was already here, there’s no need to tell me the flood is coming,” fumed Julian Ormeno, a 66-year-old pensioner in the Valencia city suburb of Sedavi. “Nobody came to take responsibility,” he told AFP.
With weather forecasters issuing warnings beforehand, such tragedies are “entirely avoidable” if people can be kept away from surging flood water, said Hannah Cloke, hydrology professor at the University of Reading.
The devastating outcome suggests Valencia’s warning system failed, she said. “People just don’t know what to do when faced with a flood, or when they hear warnings.”
“People shouldn’t be dying from these kinds of forecasted weather events in countries where they have the resources to do better,” added Liz Stephens, a professor in climate risks and resilience at the University of Reading.
“We have a long way to go to prepare for this kind of event, and worse, in future.”
© 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)
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NEWS
Spain floods disaster: death toll rises to 205 as extra troops mobilised
By Guardian - Ashifa Kassam - Fri 1 Nov 2024 12.12 GMT
Weather agency says four regions remain on amber alert because of risk of rains and storms.
The death toll from the floods in Spain this week has risen to 205, as residents in the Valencia region were warned to brace for more rain and an additional 500 soldiers were earmarked to help with the rescue operations.
Authorities in Valencia raised the death toll there to 202 on Friday afternoon, bringing the overall toll to at least 205 in have been was the deadliest floods in Spain’s modern history.
The state weather agency Aemet said that four regions, including Valencia, remained on amber alert because of the risk of rains and storms, days after rivers of mud-coloured waters left a trail of devastation.
On Thursday, Aemet had warned that the adverse weather conditions were expected to continue in the coming days. “We’re going to send a clear message,” the agency wrote on social media. “The meteorological emergency is not over. The storm still continues over Spain.”
Days after the flash floods coursed across parts of the country, sweeping away bridges, cars and streetlights, the number of missing people remains unknown.
The majority of those reported killed have been in the Valencia region, where earlier this week more than 1,000 soldiers from Spain’s emergency response unit were deployed to bolster the efforts of local emergency services.
On Friday, Spain’s defence minister, Margarita Robles, said a further 500 soldiers were being sent to the region and that more could be sent if needed. “Their missions include helping to dig out people who may be in basements or lower floors – unfortunately there are a lot of them – and helping to pump out water [from roads] to allow transportation so that food and water can reach certain populations.”
A mobile morgue had been deployed, along with psychologists, as well as specialised teams capable of locating bodies. “This is a horrible tragedy,” she told broadcaster RTVE. “One has to keep in mind that this is a storm that is unprecedented, not just in this century but even in the last.”
The situation remains dire in many of the affected areas. Thousands remain without access to water or reliable food while parts of the heaviest-hit areas remain inaccessible.
In the municipality of Alfafar, south of the city of Valencia, the mayor appealed for help. Days after a deluge of muddy water had destroyed homes, swept away cars and cut off access to part of the town of 22,000 people, Juan Ramón Adsuara said there had been little sign of firefighters, soldiers or national police.
“We’ve been forgotten,” he told local media À Punt. “There are people living with corpses in their homes, this is really sad.”
Instead it had been left to residents and local police to do what they could. Some had been using their own machinery to try to clear out part of the municipality that remained inaccessible, while others were risking the roads to drive to Valencia in order to bring supplies.
“We’ve had to empty a supermarket to distribute food among the population,” he said. “Please, we’re asking for help. We’re running out of everything.”
Editors comments
The EU has lied about climate and energy for five years.
Christian Skaug 30/10/2024 11:54
The EU elite and activists have for five years told lies about climate and energy that do not physically hold water, says Italy's former climate and energy minister Roberto Cingolani, himself an outstanding physicist.
The mistakes were made in a state of drunkenness, and those who made them should not retaliate, believes Cingolani, who states that Europe stands weakened.
*********
YOU DON`T WANT TO WASTE TIME ON CLIMATE CHANGE
The weather`s big problem with the environmental crisis.
All caused by factions interfering with our normal CHAOS THEORY , altering our interdependent systems of currents, wind and solar temperature. FOR GOD`S SAKE, LEAVE IT ALONE!!!