Crews searched for bodies in stranded cars and sodden buildings Thursday as residents salvaged 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 Thursday 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 from the storm late Tuesday and early Wednesday 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 Thursday before the death toll spiked from 95 on 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 unrecognizable.
Luís Sánchez, a welder, said he saved several people who were trapped in their cars on the flooded V-31 highway south of Valencia city. The road rapidly became a floating graveyard strewn with hundreds of vehicles.
“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 that rescuers in helicopters saved some 70 people stranded on rooftops and in cars, but ground crews were far from done.
“We are searching house by house,” Ángel Martínez, one of 1,000 soldiers helping with rescue efforts told Spain’s national radio RNE from the town of Utiel, where at least six people died.
An Associated Press journalist saw rescuers remove seven body bags from an underground garage in Barrio de la Torre.
“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 officials and emergency services in Valencia on Thursday, the first of three official days of mourning.
