At least 63 people have died and many more are missing after torrential rains caused flash floods in southern and eastern Spain, local authorities said on Wednesday.
The death toll is Spain’s worst natural disaster in nearly 30 years and was confirmed by emergency services in the eastern region of Valencia, who said it was only an initial assessment.
Authorities had advised residents to stay home and avoid non-essential travel as heavy rains inundated the worst-hit towns, sweeping away cars and disrupting public transport.
Videos shared on social media showed streets submerged in a sea of muddy water and dramatic rescues by emergency services, including a woman and her pets being airlifted to safety by helicopter from a house ravaged by high winds and flooding.
“For those who are still searching for their loved ones at this moment, the whole of Spain is crying with you,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a televised address.
“To the towns and cities devastated by this tragedy, I say the same thing: together we will rebuild your streets, your squares and your bridges,” he said.
Spain’s weather agency AEMET issued a red alert in the city of Valencia, with nearly 20 centimetres (8 inches) of rain falling in some areas, turning roads into rivers and disrupting motorways and railway lines.
The last time Spain had suffered more deaths from flooding was in 1996, when 87 people died in a town near the Pyrenees.
According to the BBC, the town of Chiva, near Valencia, received more than 48 centimetres (19 inches) of rain in just eight hours on Tuesday, equivalent to the amount of rain that falls for an entire year.
Valencia’s regional leader, Carlos Mazon, told a news conference that some people were stranded in inaccessible locations. Police and rescue services used helicopters to bring people to safety from their homes and cars.
More than 1,000 soldiers from the country’s emergency services were deployed to the devastated areas.
“Yesterday was the worst day of my life,” said Ricardo Gabaldón, mayor of the city of Utiel near Valencia. He told national broadcaster RTVE that several people were still missing in his city.
“We were trapped like rats. Cars and garbage containers were flooding the streets. The water rose to three meters,” Gabaldón said.
While the rain in Valencia had subsided by late Wednesday morning, Spain’s national weather service predicted more storms through Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
Spain has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years but has not seen anything on the scale of this week’s devastation. The country is still recovering from a severe drought earlier this year.
ASAJA, one of Spain’s largest farmers’ groups, said Tuesday that it expected significant damage to crops.
The death toll from these floods is the highest Europe has seen since 2021, when 185 people died in Germany after heavy rains.
Scientists say the increase in extreme weather events is likely linked to climate change.