Neighbours, friends, relatives and strangers worked alongside each other in the mud. People brought water and food, shovels and sweeping brushes, as they came to the aid of communities in Valencia, the region in eastern Spain that has been devastated by recent flooding.
At least 205 people are known to have died in the worst floods to hit Spain and Europe in decades, but the death toll is rising.
Experts estimate that about a year of rain fell in eight hours on Tuesday. Water rapidly rose, running into ground-floor apartments and houses, killing people who found themselves trapped there. Others died in their cars when they tried to flee.
Yesterday, about 500 soldiers were being added to the 1,000 already deployed to hunt for those who are missing and help survivors.
But in Paiporta, a small town just outside Valencia city where at least 45 were reportedly killed in the floods, the presence of emergency services and the army remained light. In their absence, ordinary people worked in groups to push the thick muddy water from homes and roads down drains in the streets.
Volunteers set up tables to hand out donated clothes, bottles of water, milk and food, to others in need. Some people walked for two hours to drop off donations.
“The first day, on Wednesday morning, I saw the bodies of two people I knew,” said Kevin Asensi, who lives in nearby La Torre, which was also badly hit by the flooding. Many people had died inside their homes, some whose bodies had likely not yet been found, he said. “Only the neighbours are helping, not the government … I don’t know why the army is not here, we need the soldiers,” he said.
Another local man, Luiz Migel, said he found it difficult to put into words what he was feeling: “I lost everything, my house, my business.”
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Valencia city centre was untouched by the floods and on Friday had an uneasy sense of normality about it. Tourists sat out eating tapas and drinking wine, while only a few kilometres away people picked through the wreckage of their homes.
However, thousands, of people came from the city and elsewhere to help those in the areas worst hit by the floods. Travelling by foot, they brought supplies of food and water and handed out sandwiches to people working to clear mud from the roads. Others carried shovels to help the clean-up effort, which will certainly take weeks.
“We have not been affected, so we are just trying to help,” said Belen Gomez (23), from Valencia, talking as she walked across a bridge from the city to La Torre.
Another woman, Lide Crespo, had gone door-to-door with a friend in Paiporta, before soon finding someone who was trying to clear muck and water from a home. “Everyone needs help, we came here and we started helping,” she said.