Summary of the day
At least 73 people are now reported to have died after torrential rain battered eastern and southern Spain on Tuesday, bringing flash floods that raged through towns and cut off roads and railway lines.
Government officials have said that the exact number of missing people remains unknown. “The fact that we can’t give a number of the missing persons indicates the magnitude of the tragedy,” said Spain’s minister of territory policies, Ángel Víctor Torres
Spain has declared three days of mourning, beginning Thursday.
Rescuers continue to scour the devastated areas but Carlos Mazón, the regional leader of Valencia, said some areas remain “absolutely impossible” to reach.
The defence minister, Margarita Robles, said 1,000 soldiers have been deployed to help with emergency efforts. She also offered mobile morgues, suggesting that officials believe more bodies could be trapped in the mud and in houses.
While the rain has subsided in Valencia, weather officials have said parts of Catalonia and western Andalusia remain under maximum alert.
Spain’s state weather agency has described the rainfall in parts of the country as “extraordinary,” with the small town of Chiva receiving practically as much rain as would be seen in a full year.
The German government has offered its help to Spain, with a spokesperson adding they were in direct contact with Madrid should they need any assistance
Climate scientists have warned that torrential rains are set to strengthen as the planet continues to heat up.
The gratitude that greeted Tuesday’s dawn downpours was short-lived in Utiel. When the longed-for rains finally reached the town in the drought-stricken eastern Spanish region of Valencia, they were merciless in their abundance.
“People were very happy at first because they’d been praying for rain as their lands needed water,” said Remedios, who owns a bar in Utiel. “But by 12 o’clock, this storm had really hit and we were all pretty terrified.”
Trapped in the bar, she and a handful of her customers could only sit and watch as Spain’s worst flooding in almost 30 years caused the Magro River to overflow its banks, trapping some residents in their homes and sending cars and rubbish bins surging through the streets on muddy flood waters.
