Raging waters, abandoned cars, layers of mud: More than 150 killed in Spanish floods

VALENCIA, Spain – When some of the worst flash floods in decades in eastern Spain hit, Diego Hernandez was passing the city of Valencia on his way to his mother’s funeral.

As he and his wife drove on Tuesday night, a thin stream of muddy water started to appear under their tires. Soon, it was almost 3 feet high and nearing the top of their seats. Within seconds, another car had piled on top of theirs.

The couple fled their vehicle, initially hanging onto a tree as trash cans, car wheels, sofas and chairs streamed by in the raging floodwaters.

“It was like an apocalypse,” he said.

They were hardly alone. Thousands of people found themselves trapped – in cars, in trucks, and in homes – as heavy rainfall pounded southern Spain early this week.

The death toll jumped to at least 158 people Thursday. Others are still missing, and rescuers feared finding more bodies, said Margarita Robles, Spain’s defense minister, as teams dug into the mud.

Some areas in eastern and southern Spain received anywhere from a month’s to a year’s worth of rain in a single day, or even in eight hours. Rain fell into Thursday morning as cities and towns surveyed the damage.

Some districts of Valencia and Catalonia, on Spain’s eastern coast, remained on high alert, with more rain expected during the day, the national weather agency said.

Thousands of households were without electricity or a phone connection, authorities said. More than a dozen municipalities reported having no clean drinking water, emergency services in Valencia said.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez traveled to Valencia and visited some of the worst-affected areas after the government declared three days of national mourning. The leader of the main opposition party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, also visited the areas.

“We are not going to leave the people of Valencia on their own,” Sánchez said after visiting an emergency coordination center there. He also urged people to stay home, “because in that way we will be saving lives.”

Members of the Emergency Military Unit, civil guards and police officers were participating in the search-and-rescue operation, Sánchez said.

King Felipe VI of Spain also instructed the Royal Guard to join the search-and-rescue operation. “All of us join this shared pain,” the king said.

At least 155 people had been confirmed dead in the Valencia region alone, the emergency coordination center in Valencia said in a statement. Regional governments in Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia said three people had died in those regions.

In and around the city of Valencia, the regional capital, water had gushed into ground-floor apartments, trapping some people. It flooded shopping centers, dog shelters and even a nursing home, killing some of its residents. Other victims died in places where it did not rain, swept away by water that came roaring through.

On Wednesday, as coroners worked to identify the bodies, some of the hardest-hit villages remained cut off, with roads and bridges broken or inundated by the flash floods.

Dozens of roads remain closed, including major highways, the Civil Guard said. Three of Valencia’s subway lines collapsed, and train service, including a high-speed link to Madrid, may be suspended for as long as three weeks, said Óscar Puente, the transport minister.

Assessing the damage in Valencia, Puente said, “The entire regional road network is seriously damaged.”

Authorities have deployed security forces to guard against looting. The national police said they had arrested 39 people in one operation and recovered “a multitude of stolen items.”

Thousands of trucks and cars were abandoned on streets and highways, buried in thick layers of mud. Their owners were housed in makeshift shelters, unable to make it home. Dead bodies were trapped in some vehicles, the Transport Ministry said.

Toni Zamorano, 59, sat on the ground outside a basketball hall in Valencia that had been turned into a dormitory. He was driving home when his car filled with water Tuesday night. He pushed his door open and jumped into the water. Within a few minutes, he saw that his car had been completely covered in water and was floating away.

“I started swimming, walking, swimming,” he said. He was alone on a stretch of flooded highway, with the water up to his chest, as sofas, computers and cars floated by.

“Cars were like boats,” he said. “I honestly thought it was all over.”

Zamorano lives in the village of Sedavi, a few kilometers south of Valencia. He has not been able to make it home yet.

“I don’t know what I’m going to find,” he said. “My whole town must be devastated, and I don’t know what my home is like.”

Victims of the flooding in Valencia will receive a minimum of 6,000 euros (about $6,500), as part of a 250 million euro aid package announced by Carlos Mazon, the leader of the Valencia region.

Hernandez, 56, did not make it to his mother’s funeral. His wife eventually managed to cling onto a lamppost, but he did not, and was carried away. He tried to grab floating tires and poles until he managed to enter a bus that was stuck in the stream. The upper part of the bus was still dry, and he took off his wet clothes and wrapped himself in its curtains.

At about 4 a.m. on Wednesday, rescuers came for him. For hours, he had no idea what had happened to his wife.

He did not have his cellphone, and none of the emergency workers he spoke to had any information. Hernandez and his wife have known each other since they were both children, and they had been married nearly 30 years.

Finally, on Wednesday morning, he called his brother, and got the news he was waiting for: She was alive. She also blamed him for not holding onto the lamppost as she did, his brother said.

If she was complaining about him, “it’s a sign she is doing well,” Hernandez said with a laugh, as he stood smoking outside a sports hall while wearing a sweater from the local basketball team that the rescuers had given him.

Inside, the eight courts had been turned into a dormitory, with dozens of mattresses laid geometrically below the backboards.

In Madrid, Ana de la Cuadra frantically exchanged text messages with members of her family, who were trapped in Catarroja, a town in southern Valencia.

“They’ve warned that another wave of water may come,” Cristina de la Cuadra, her sister, said via text messages, accompanied by videos of river water gushing down the street. “We are in bad shape, without water or electricity.”

Soon after, she switched off her phone to conserve its battery.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.