ALFAFAR: The death toll in Spain’s catastrophic floods, the worst weather disaster of the last five decades has mounted to 205, after which Spanish rescuers opened a temporary morgue in a convention centre and battled to reach areas still cut off.
At least 202 people have died in Valencia, the eastern region that bore the brunt of the devastation while Three have died in Castilla La Mancha and Andalusia, the regional authorities said.
The death toll is now almost level to the Romanian floods of 1970 which claimed 209 lives.
In 1967, flash floods in Portugal killed nearly 500 people.
Some 500 soldiers were deployed to search for people who are still missing and help survivors of the storm, which triggered a fresh weather alert in Huelva in southwestern Spain.
A man stands near damaged vehicles following heavy rains that caused floods, in Paiporta, near Valencia, Spain, November 1, 2024. — Reuters
A man stands near damaged vehicles following heavy rains that caused floods, in Paiporta, near Valencia, Spain, November 1, 2024. — Reuters
The death toll is likely to keep rising, with dozens of people still not accounted for, Angel Victor Torres, minister in charge of cooperation with Spain’s regions, told a press conference late on Thursday.
With about 75,000 homes still without electricity, firefighters were siphoning petrol from cars that had been abandoned in the floods to power generators to get domestic supplies back on.
“We’re going from car to car looking for any petrol we can find,” said one firefighter who had travelled to Valencia from the southern region of Andalusia to assist rescue efforts, carrying a plastic tube and empty bottles to collect the petrol from the cars’ tanks. A year of rain fell in just eight hours on Tuesday night, destroying roads, rail tracks and bridges as rivers burst their banks.
