On social media, television and Spanish national radio, the anguished voices of people without news of their loved ones since the night prior filled the airwaves on Wednesday, October 30. According to a provisional assessment by the emergency services, at least 95 people died during the terrible floods recorded in the Valencia region on the evening of Tuesday, October 29 and during the night into Wednesday, October 30, and three more in neighboring regions. The death toll could rise further.
Dozens of people are still missing and the power outages are still affecting some 150,000 home. The numerous blocked roads and collapsed bridges have made communication in some of these areas extremely difficult. The Spanish government, which has set up a crisis unit and deployed some 1,000 members of the emergency military unit, has declared three days of mourning.
“My cousin’s nephew is missing. The vehicle in which he was traveling was swept away by the rising river. We haven’t heard from him,” Lola Tomas, a resident of Letur, a town of 1,000 inhabitants in the province of Albacete, told Le Monde by telephone with her voice trembling as there is sadly little hope of finding him alive. “The water rose suddenly and swept away the whole historical center in its path. It’s a disaster,” added the 57-year-old teacher.
At least five people are still missing in Letur, where an 88-year-old woman was found dead in the afternoon. On Tuesday, more than 400 liters of water per square meter fell in the region before rushing down the Ramblas, a natural mountain drainage channel. Normally dry, this time the rivers overflowed their banks, sweeping away houses and vehicles in their path with a force the town’s elders told us they had never seen before. By Wednesday evening, the town was still without electricity and drinking water. The municipality is now concerned about the structural damage the flood may have caused to the buildings still standing.
Cars swept away by muddy water
This Dantean scenario was repeated in the municipalities of Utiel, Requena, Chiva, Cheste and Picanya, bringing an influx of images of devastation. And the water that fell in the Valencian countryside eventually poured into the south of Valencia with greatly increased ferocity. The detour of the Turia river, built after a flood that caused 300 deaths in 1957, enabled the city center of Spain’s third largest city to escape the floods, but not the southern districts.
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