Flooding in Spain: Search for survivors continues

Emergency teams in Spain are continuing efforts to locate dozens of people still missing in the worst flooding disaster in generations.

More than 200 people are known to have died, with most of the deaths occurring in the Valencia region, but the death toll is expected to rise.

The floods destroyed bridges and covered cities in mud – leaving cut-off communities without water, food or electricity.

Some residents say more lives could have been saved if local authorities had warned more quickly about the risk of flooding.

Among them is Juan González, who lives in the town of Aldaia, Valencia. He told the BBC that the loss there was devastating.

“This is an area prone to flash flooding. “It's outrageous that our local government didn't do anything about it even though they knew this was coming and they didn't do anything about it,” he said.

Another local, Augustin, said the apartment where he lived with his wife and children was completely flooded and they had to move in with his parents.

The regional government-supervised civil protection agency issued an emergency alert to the phones of people in and around the city of Valencia after 8:00 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday, as flooding quickly erupted, with numbers increasing in many areas and in some cases are already causing devastating effects.

Questions remain about the timing of the alert and whether Spain has an adequate warning system for natural disasters.

Mireia, who lives near some of the devastation in Valencia, said people were “not prepared at all.”

“A lot of people were in their cars and couldn’t get out,” she said. “They just drowned in the water.”

Thousands of volunteers are currently helping the Spanish military and emergency services with the rescue and clean-up operation, and Valencia regional president Carlos Mazon said more troops would be deployed.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez took to social media to express his gratitude to the volunteers, calling them an “example of solidarity and the limitless commitment of Spanish society.”

He has vowed that his government will do whatever is necessary to help those affected by the disaster.

In the devastated town of Paiporta, where more than 60 deaths have been reported so far, residents have expressed frustration that aid is coming too slowly.

“There are not enough firefighters, the shovels haven't arrived,” Paco Clemente, a 33-year-old pharmacist, told AFP as he helped clear mud from a friend's house.

Dozens of people were arrested for looting. An Aldaia resident told AFP he saw thieves stealing items from an abandoned supermarket because “people were a bit desperate”.

Meanwhile, Spanish authorities have extended the red alert for torrential rain on the south coast.

This also includes the Huelva region, which has already been hit by heavy rainfall. The city of Cartaya received about two months' worth of rain in just ten hours.

There are warnings of further severe setbacks until Saturday.

One of the factors contributing to the disaster was the lack of rainfall during the rest of the year, which meant that the soil in many areas of eastern and southern Spain could not absorb rainwater efficiently.

Global warming may also have contributed to the severity of the floods.

In a preliminary report, World Weather Attribution (WWA), a group of international scientists studying the role of global warming in extreme weather, found that rainfall in Spain was 12% heavier due to climate change and that the weather event experienced was twice as large was probably high.