Rescue workers are racing to find survivors of once-in-a-generation floods in Spain that have killed at least 95 people and left cities submerged in mud and roads strewn with overturned cars.
About 1,000 soldiers joined police and firefighters on Thursday in a desperate search for bodies in the Valencia region as the country began three days of mourning.
Territorial Policy Minister Angel Victor Torres said late Wednesday the death toll would rise because “many people are missing.”
The eastern city of Valencia and its surrounding region received a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours on Tuesday, flooding towns and cities with water and mud.
Rescuers were struggling to pull survivors off rooftops with the help of helicopters, while others were searching homes, some of which were neck-deep in water.
Carlos Mazzone, head of the Valencia regional government, said emergency services rescued 200 people on the ground and carried out 70 air evacuations on Wednesday.
Valencia’s emergency services announced a provisional death toll of 92 people, adding that bodies were still being recovered. Authorities said two people died in neighboring Castilla-La Mancha and another victim died in Andalusia to the south.
Cedavi, a suburb of the Mediterranean city of Valencia, was filled with cars and muddy roads.
Authorities in the Valencia region announced that survivors were being sheltered in temporary housing such as fire stations.
Rail and air transport remained severely disrupted.
The damage caused by the floods is Spain’s deadliest flood since 1973, when at least 150 people were estimated to have died in the south-eastern provinces of Granada, Murcia and Almería.
Scientists warn that extreme weather events like the storm that hit Valencia are becoming more intense, longer-lasting and occurring more frequently as a result of human-induced climate change.
