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The video below shows the moment a woman and a dog were rescued from a property in Valencia
Spain floods: what we know so far
If you’re just joining our coverage this afternoon, here’s a brief look at developments in Spain today. Tap the link in each bullet point to take a look back at previous posts
The number of people killed by yesterday’s flash floods in eastern Spain now stands at 155, with the toll expected to rise as the search continues. One minister said bodies were likely to have been trapped in cars
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 urged people to stay at home during a visit to flood-hit Valencia 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
As well as the damage caused to roads, businesses and neighbourhoods, farms in Valencia have also borne the brunt of the flash floods.
Fruit farmer Bernardo Ferrer says everything has been lost - his trees caked in thick silt that will make harvesting impossible.
“Now the fruit is going to rot. Even the trees can die because they have been under water for 36 hours ... With the heat, the humidity, the fungus will attack them too,” he told the Reuters news agency by phone from his farm in the Alzira area.
Valencia as a whole accounts for nearly two-thirds of citrus fruit production in Spain - the world’s top exporter of oranges. Persimmon, a soft, orange-coloured fruit is another major regional crop, along with avocados, almonds and grapes for wine-making.
The floods, which have killed at least 155 people and caused massive damage to infrastructure, have affected thousands of hectares of farmland, agricultural groups and farmers said.
“We are facing a catastrophe ... the losses will be in the millions of euros,” said Ricardo Bayo, secretary of the Union of Small Producers (UPA) in Valencia.
Another farming group, the Valencia Farmers’ Association, said orange, persimmon and mandarin crops were among those that would be lost.
In the rice-growing area of Albufera, fields were totally sumerged, with only a few farm buildings and trees visible above the water, Reuters pictures showed.
Ferrer said he was relieved he had insurance to cover his losses.
“The insurance (payout) usually arrives quite quickly but with this scale we’ll have to be patient,” he said.
But while citrus crops are generally insured in the region, the proportion of vineyards and nut crops with insurance is low, Bayo said.
The floods also washed away machinery, irrigation systems and roads, said Manuel Alcaide, spokesman for farmers’ association COAG, who said it was too early to calculate losses.
Livestock was also killed as the floodwaters swept in. In Utiel, one of the worst-affected towns in Valencia, Javier Iranzo and Ana Carmen Fernandez said the flooding had completely wrecked their pig farm, with 50 of their animals having drowned
Climate change 'most likely explanation' for torrential rain
Global heating made the heavy rainfall that lashed Spain this week about 12% heavier and twice as likely, an initial estimate from climate scientists has found.
The early-stage analysis, carried out by scientists from the World Weather Attribution, said climate change was “the most likely explanation” for the unusual strength of the downpour.
The group pointed to historical weather observations that showed one-day bursts of rain in the region have increased as fossil fuel pollution has heated the planet. They also highlighted a physical relationship that shows hotter air can hold more moisture - about 7% for every 1C that temperatures rise.
“We are loading the dice of extreme weather in the worst way possible,” said Ben Clarke, a researcher at Imperial College London.
To properly quantify the influence of global heating, the group would have to use models to project the probability of such heavy rainfall hitting in a hypothetical climate without human activity.
Their estimate comes as a separate analysis from Climate Central finds climate change made the hot sea surface temperatures that fuelled the downpour at least 50 to 300 times more likely.
These new images in from Valencia this afternoon are just a snapshot of the impact on homes and streets caused by the flash flooding – with more rain forecast on Thursday.
The pictures show scenes of ruin and destruction, with homes damaged and cars piled up and strewn across roads in the area
Updated
Death toll now at 155
The number now killed in yesterday’s flash floods in Valencia stands at 155, according to regional authorities.
This is an increase on the 140 confirmed earlier today and a jump on the 95 confirmed just yesterday.
As we reported earlier, the Spanish government has pledged to continue the search for survivors “for as long as it takes”.
Updated
The Spanish top flight football game between Valencia and Real Madrid scheduled for this weekend has been called off in light of these week’s multiple tragedies.
The match was due to take place at Valencia’s Mestalla stadium on Saturday evening.
In a statement released by Real Madrid this afternoon, it said: “Due to the natural catastrophe that has occurred in the Comunidad Valenciana as a result of a hurricane, having decreed three days of official mourning with the suspension of sporting competitions in the cited autonomous region, a request for a postponement has been received from the LIGA F, after speaking with all the clubs involved.
“In the light of the circumstances of force majeure arising from the events referred to above, it is necessary to postpone the matches scheduled to take place.”
Other La Liga and Segunda División matches due to be played this weekend in the Valencia region have also been postponed - Villarreal-Rayo Vallecano, Castellón-Racing de Ferrol, Eldense-Huesca and Levante-Málaga.
Updated
Sam Jones
Madrid correspondent
In the small Valencian town of Utiel, where six people died in the floods, residents were trying to come to terms with what had happened as they carted bucketloads of sodden possessions from their homes and tried to sweep out the mud.
Around them, personnel from the army’s military emergencies unit supervised the clean-up and the pumps, aided by Guardia Civil officers, firefighters and civil protection units.
In the worst affected part of the town, where the river Magro had burst its banks and sent floodwaters surging into people’s houses, the mud was still calf-deep in places and the streets littered with wrecked cars and other detritus.
“I can’t tell you want happened here,” said one local resident, Carmen Aleixandre. “I just don’t have the words to describe it.”
Utiel’s mayor, Ricardo Gabaldón, said the town was at the end of its tether and desperately needed help from the regional and national governments.
“Six people died and we’re mourning them, but hundred of people could have died here,” he said.
In some parts of the town, the floodwaters reached a height of three metres, trapping some people in their homes and leading to the deaths of the victims, who were older people or those with mobility issues.
The mayor said water and shelter were still major problems for many in the town, adding that some people were now homeless.
“There’s no power in some places and we’re having to restrict water,” he said. “There are hundreds of people who’ve lost everything - their houses and their businesses.”
Updated
Number of people killed in flash floods rises to 140 - report
The death toll as a result of the flash floods in eastern Spain has risen from 95 to 140, according to state-run news agency EFE.
Updated
Images from the US Landsat-8 satellite from 8 and 30 October vividly illustrate the scale of the disaster, showing the dramatic transformation of the landscape:
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 form on this link:
Updated
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.
Our video team have produced this, showing shocking footage of a bridge being washed away in Valencia.
'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.
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
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.
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.”
'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.
Updated
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
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.
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
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:
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
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.
⚠️ AVISO ROJO | Lluvias muy intensas en el norte de la provincia de Castellón: pueden acumularse más de 180 l/m².
— AEMET (@AEMET_Esp) October 31, 2024
¡Peligro extremo! ¡No viaje por la zona salvo que sea estrictamente necesario!
En zonas próximas de Cataluña y Comunitat Valencian continúa el aviso naranja. pic.twitter.com/B9aYnKTH3Y
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
How have you been affected?
If you have been impacted by the flooding The Guardian’s community team would like to hear from you.
We’re also interested in hearing from those helping with rescue efforts.
Get in touch below
Updated
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.”
You can read the full story below
Experts have been giving their reaction to yesterday’s disaster - sounding a warning about our preparedness and ability to cope.
Extreme weather events are becoming more intense, are lasting longer and are occurring more frequently as a result of human-induced climate change, scientists say.
“Our infrastructure is not designed to deal with these levels of flooding,” Hayley Fowler, professor of climate change impacts at Britain’s Newcastle University. She added “record-shatteringly hot” warmer sea temperatures fuel storms that dump extreme levels of rain in one place.
Such extreme weather “can overwhelm the ability of existing defences and contingency plans to cope, even in a relatively wealthy country like Spain”, said Leslie Mabon, senior lecturer in environmental systems at Britain’s Open University.
“The floods in Spain are a timely reminder that no country is exempt from the risks of climate change.”
For Linda Speight, a lecturer at the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, warnings for intense thunderstorms are “incredibly hard to issue” as the exact location of the heaviest rainfall is usually unknown in advance.
“We urgently need to adapt our cities to be more resilient to floods,” she added, suggesting making space for water to flow through urban environments without causing damage.
“We take preparation for other hazards such as earthquakes and tsunami very seriously,” added Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology, at the University of Reading.
“It is time we afforded the same to flood risk preparedness.”
'We will cling to hope', says leader of flood-hit village
As we’ve been reporting this morning, there are ongoing efforts to find survivors.
However, Emiliano García-Page, the president of the Castilla La-Mancha communitieas, has said part of the hard-hit village of Letur remains inaccessible to crews.
The region said yesterday two people had died. Five residents of Letur remained missing.
“In Letur, specifically, it still hasn’t been possible to access part of the village,” García-Page told reporters.
“The prognosis is pessimistic, but until we find people and confirm things, we will cling to hope.”
Son momentos muy difíciles para los familiares de los desaparecidos en Letur. Todos mis pensamientos están con vosotros.
— Emiliano García-Page (@garciapage) October 30, 2024
Mucha fuerza también al resto de vecinos y a su alcalde @sergiomarinsanc.
El @gobjccm estará a la altura de las circunstancias para ofrecer la ayuda… pic.twitter.com/9v33SHSB3M
Updated
Analysis: deadly floods and droughts are two faces of the climate crisis coin
Residents of Chiva, a small town on the outskirts of Valencia, can expect a grim future of worsening drought as the planet heats up and the country dries out. But on Tuesday, they also witnessed a year’s worth of rainfall in a matter of hours.
The torrential rains that flooded southern and eastern Spain on Tuesday night, ripping away bridges and tearing through towns, have killed scores of people. Fossil fuel pollution plays a role in warping both extremes of the water cycle: heat evaporates water, leaving people and plants parched, but hot air can hold more moisture, increasing the potential for catastrophic downpours.
“Droughts and floods are the two sides of the same climate change coin,” said Stefano Materia, an Italian climate scientist at Barcelona Supercomputing Centre. He said studies had linked droughts in the Mediterranean with the climate emergency through changes in atmospheric circulation at the same time that global temperature rise had severely heated the region.
Read on here:
Authorities have confirmed a mother and baby were among the victims swept away in yesterday’s floods in the Valencia suburbs.
Around 40 people were confirmed to have died in Paiporta alone.
Tens of thousands of homes across the area are still without electricity and drinking water and many roads were blocked by hundreds of cars and trucks swept away in sudden torrents.
Emergency services carried out 200 rescues on the ground and 70 aerial evacuations on Wednesday, said Valencia regional government chief Carlos Mazon.
Updated
This week’s floods were Spain’s worst since 1996, when 87 people died after torrential rain hit a campsite in the Pyrenees mountains. Europe’s most recent deadly floods came in July 2021, killing 243 people in Germany, Belgium, Romania, Italy and Austria.
The intense rain has been 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. This creates atmospheric instability, causing warm, saturated air to rise rapidly, leading to heavy rain and thunderstorms.
Experts say the warming of the Mediterranean, which increases water evaporation, plays a key role in making torrential rains more severe.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images from affected areas in Spain:
‘We were trapped like rats’: floods bring devastation and despair
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.
“The rising waters brought mud and stones with them and they were so strong that they broke the surface of the road,” said Remedios, who gave only her first name.
“The tunnel that leads into the town was half-full of mud, trees were down and there were cars and rubbish containers rolling down the streets. My outside terrace has been destroyed – the chairs and shades were all swept away. It’s just a disaster.”
By Wednesday afternoon, the death toll in Valencia and the neighbouring regions of Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía stood at 95 . Utiel’s mayor, Ricardo Gabaldón, told Las Provincias newspaper that some of the town’s residents had not survived the floods, but was unable to provide an exact number.
Hours earlier, Gabaldón had told Spain’s national broadcaster, RTVE, that Tuesday had been the worst day of his life. “We were trapped like rats,” he said. “Cars and rubbish containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to 3 metres.”
Rescue personnel and more than 1,100 soldiers from Spain’s emergency response units have been deployed to affected areas. Spain’s central government has also set up a crisis committee to coordinate rescue efforts.
As the search for missing people continues, motorists are urged to stay off the roads and away from swollen rivers amid warnings that the severe weather was not over and that the number of deaths could still rise.
Search for survivors continues as more rain forecast
Rescue workers in Spain continued to search for more victims after deadly floods, as questions were raised about how one of the world’s most developed nations failed to respond adequately to an extreme storm.
Torrential rains that began at the start of the week sparked flooding that has left at least 95 people dead, the deadliest such disaster in the western European country since 1973.
Defence minister Margarita Robles told Cadena Ser radio station that a military unit specialised in rescue operations would on Thursday start combing through the mud and debris with sniffer dogs in the worst-hit areas.
Asked if the number of victims was likely to increase, she said: “Unfortunately we are not optimistic”.
The teams have brought with them 50 mobile morgues.
More heavy rain was predicted for the hardest-hit eastern Valencia region and other areas on the north-east coast on today.
Updated
