Rescuers search for bodies after unprecedented flooding claims at least 158 lives in Spain

Crews searched for bodies in stranded cars and sodden buildings on Thursday as people tried to salvage what they could from their ruined homes following monstrous flash floods in Spain that claimed at least 158 lives, with 155 deaths confirmed in the eastern Valencia region alone.

More horrors emerged from the debris and ubiquitous layers of mud left by the walls of water that produced Spain's deadliest natural disaster in living memory. The damage recalled the aftermath of a tsunami, with survivors left to pick up the pieces as they mourn their loved ones.

Cars were piled on one another like fallen dominoes, uprooted trees, downed power lines and household items all mired in mud that covered streets in dozens of communities in Valencia, a region south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast. An unknown number of people are still missing and more victims could be found.

"Unfortunately, there are dead people inside some vehicles," Spain's Transport Minister Óscar Puente said early on Thursday before the death toll spiked from 95 dead late Wednesday night.

Rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that tore through homes and businesses, sweeping away cars, people and everything else in its path. The floods demolished bridges and left roads unrecognisable.

Luís Sánchez, a welder, was one of the lucky ones when the storm turned the V-31 highway south of Valencia city into a floating graveyard strewn with hundreds of vehicles. He said he saved several people.

"I saw bodies floating past. I called out, but nothing," Sánchez said. "The firefighters took the elderly first, when they could get in. I am from nearby so I tried to help and rescue people. People were crying all over, they were trapped."

Regional authorities said late Wednesday it seemed no one was left stranded on rooftops or in cars in need of rescue after helicopters saved some 70 people. The ground crews, however, were far from done.

"Our priority is to find the victims and the missing so we can help end the suffering of their families," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said after meeting with regional officials and emergency services in Valencia on Thursday, the first of three official days of mourning.

Spain's Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the most powerful flash flood event in recent memory. Scientists link it to climate change, which is also behind increasingly high temperatures and droughts in Spain and the heating up of the Mediterranean Sea.

Human-caused climate change has doubled the likelihood of a storm like this week's deluge in Valencia, according to a rapid but partial analysis Thursday by World Weather Attribution, comprising dozens of international scientists who study global warming's role in extreme weather.

The greatest pain was concentrated in Paiporta, a community of 25,000 next to Valencia city where mayor Maribel Albalat said Thursday that not fewer than 62 people had perished.

"(Paiporta) never has floods, we never have this kind of problem. And we found a lot of elderly people in the town center," Albalat told national broadcaster RTVE. "There were also a lot of people who came to get their cars out of their garages ... it was a real trap.'

Heavy rains continued Thursday farther north as the Spanish weather agency issued alerts for several counties in Castellón, in the eastern Valencia region, and for Tarragona in Catalonia, as well as southwest Cadiz.

Over 1,000 soldiers from Spain's emergency rescue units joined regional and local emergency workers in the search for bodies and survivors. The soldiers had recovered 22 bodies and rescued 110 people by Wednesday night.

Some 150,000 people in Valencia were without electricity on Wednesday, but roughly half had power by Thursday, Spanish news agency EFE reported. An unknown number did not have running water and were relying on whatever bottled water they could find.

Associated Press