A man stands with a shovel on a muddy street after heavy rain caused flooding in Porta, Spain, on October 31, 2024.
Eva Manez Reuters
Death toll from devastating lightning strikes flood The death toll from the storm climbed to 158 in eastern Spain on Thursday, with rescue teams still searching for missing people in what could become Europe’s worst storm-related disaster in more than 50 years.
“There are 158 people in total and dozens more are missing,” Angel Victor Torres, Spain’s minister in charge of regional cooperation, told a news conference.
On Tuesday, parts of the Valencia region received a year’s worth of rain in eight hours.
The tragedy is already Spain’s worst flood-related disaster in modern history, and meteorologists say human-driven climate change is causing it. extreme weather events More frequent and destructive.
In 2021, at least 185 people died in severe flooding in Germany. Before that, 209 people died in Romania in 1970 and nearly 500 died in Portugal in 1967.
Rescue teams on Thursday found the bodies of eight people, including a local police officer, trapped in a garage on the outskirts of the city, Valencia Mayor MarÃa José Catara told reporters.
In the same neighborhood in La Torre, a 45-year-old woman was also found dead in her home, she said.
The picture shows areas affected by heavy rains near Valencia, Spain, on October 31, 2024, causing flooding.
Nacho Dorsey | Reuters
Thousands of people carrying bags or pushing shopping carts crossed a pedestrian bridge over the Turia River from La Torre into central Valencia on Thursday to buy essentials such as toilet paper and water.
Opposition politicians accused Madrid’s central government of moving too slowly to warn residents and dispatch rescue teams, prompting the interior ministry to say regional authorities were responsible for civil protection measures.
“If there had been timely warning, these people would not have died,” Laura Villaescusa, a neighbor and manager of a local supermarket, told Reuters.
Maribel Arbat, mayor of the nearby town of Piporta, said residents had received no warning of the imminent flood danger. She said 62 people had died in her town.
“We found a lot of elderly people at home and people going to pick up their cars. It’s a trap,” she told TVE.
In the small town of Gordeleta, 37 kilometers (23 miles) west of the city of Valencia, Antonio Molina, 52, described how he leaned on his bed on Tuesday as water came up to his neck. Neighbor’s porch pillars for escape.
Molina, whose home suffered two major floods in 2018 and 2020, accused authorities of allowing residential towers to be built in waterlogged depressions.
People stand next to damaged above-ground metro tracks after heavy rain caused flooding in Porta, Spain, on October 31, 2024.
Eva Manez Reuters
“We don’t want to live here anymore,” he said through tears. “As soon as we get a few raindrops, we start checking our phones.”
Flooding has destroyed Valencia’s infrastructure, washed away bridges, roads and railway tracks, and flooded the region’s farmland. crops are exported globally.
Transportation Secretary Oscar Puente said about 80 kilometers (50 miles) of roads in the east were severely damaged or impassable. Many were blocked by abandoned cars.
“Unfortunately, some of the vehicles have bodies on them,” Puente told reporters, adding that it would take two to three weeks to re-establish the high-speed train connection between Valencia and Madrid.
On October 31, 2024, stranded cars piled up on the street after flooding in the La Torre neighborhood of Sedavi, Valencia, Spain.
Suzanne Vera | Reuters
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged people to stay home amid the threat of more stormy weather as he visited a rescue coordination center near the city of Valencia.
“The most important thing now is to protect as many lives as possible,” he told reporters.
In the hard-hit rural town of Util, about 85 kilometers (53 miles) inland, the Magro River burst its banks, flooding most single-story houses with up to 3 meters (9.8 feet) of water.
Ricardo Gabaldon, the mayor of Uttil, a town of about 12,000 people, said at least six people died, most of them elderly or disabled people who were unable to climb to safety.
On Thursday, residents began cleaning up using water pumps on tractors, while children helped clear sidewalks. The middle of the road was filled with damaged household appliances and furniture, and the elderly struggled to walk on the slippery and muddy streets.
On October 31, 2024, in Sedavi, Valencia, Spain, the streets were covered with mud and a woman knelt on the wall.
Suzanne Vera | Reuters
Pope Francis said he was praying for the people in the region. “I am very close to them in this time of tragedy,” he said in a video posted on X.
The low-pressure system behind Spain’s flooding has tapped an “atmospheric river” to transport excess moisture from the unusually warm tropical Atlantic, research group Climate Central said in a report on Thursday.
According to its Climate Change Index: Oceans, open in a new tabman-made reasons climate change This increases the likelihood of rising sea surface temperatures by at least 50 to 300 times.
