Rescuers in Spain are battling to reach areas still cut off due to heavy rains as the death toll from catastrophic floods rose to 205 in Europe’s worst weather disaster in five decades.
In Valencia, the eastern region that bore the brunt of the devastation this week, hundreds of soldiers were deployed to hunt for the missing and help survivors of the storm.
In a matter of minutes on Tuesday, flash floods caused by heavy downpours swept away everything in their path – destroying roads, railway tracks and bridges as rivers burst their banks. The flooding also submerged thousands of hectares of farmland.
“Around a year’s worth of rain fell in a single day, and as you can tell, it’s had a devastating effect on the community. They’re still cut off – no electricity, no connection to any sort of power system here,” Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego said, reporting from Chiva. The Valencian town received more rain in eight hours on Tuesday than it had in the preceding 20 months, and water overflowed a gully that crosses the town, tearing up roads and walls of houses.
Meanwhile, more storms are expected. The Spanish weather agency issued alerts for strong rains in Tarragona, Catalonia, as well as part of the Balearic Islands.