People collect goods at a supermarket affected by flooding in Valencia, Spain, Thursday, October 31, 2024. (Manu Fernandez/AP)

BARRIO DE LA TORRE, Spain — Survivors of Spain’s worst natural disaster this century woke up Thursday to scenes of devastation, after villages were wiped out by monstrous flash floods that claimed the lives of lives of at least 95 people.

The death toll is expected to rise as search efforts continue, with authorities removing bodies from buildings and vehicles and an unknown number of people still missing.

“Unfortunately, there are deaths inside some vehicles,” Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said, referring to the hundreds of cars and trucks stuck on mud-stained roads.

The consequences are similar to the damage caused by a violent hurricane or tsunami.

Cars piled on top of each other like broken toys, uprooted trees, downed power lines and household items, all mired in a layer of mud covering the streets of Barrio de la Torre, a suburb of Valencia, one dozens of localities hard hit. Valencia region, where 92 people died between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

Walls of rushing water transformed narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that swept over the ground floors of homes and swept away cars, people and everything in their path. Floods destroyed bridges and made roads unrecognizable.

“The neighborhood is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it’s literally destroyed,” said Christian Viena, owner of a destroyed bar in Barrio de la Torre.

Regional authorities said late Wednesday it appeared no one was left stranded on rooftops or in cars needing rescue after helicopters rescued some 70 people. But ground crews and citizens continued to inspect vehicles and homes damaged by the onslaught of water.

People clean their flood-affected homes in Utiel, Spain, Wednesday, October 30, 2024. (Manu Fernandez/AP)

“Our priority is to find the victims and the missing so that we can help end the suffering of their families,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said after meeting regional officials and emergency services in Valencia on Thursday. the first of three days of official mourning. in the European country.

The Spanish Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms which can cause flooding. But it was the most powerful flash flood in recent memory. Scientists link it to climate change, which is also causing higher temperatures and droughts in Spain and warming of the Mediterranean Sea.

While the greatest suffering was inflicted on municipalities near the city of Valencia, the storms unleashed their fury across large swaths of the southern and eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Two deaths were reported in the neighboring region of Castilla La Mancha. Southern Andalusia reported one death.

Houses were left without water as far as Malaga, in Andalusia, where a high-speed train derailed on Tuesday evening, without any of the approximately 300 passengers being injured.

Greenhouses and farms in southern Spain, known as the garden of Europe for its exported products, were also destroyed by heavy rains and floods. The storms spawned a freak tornado in Valencia and a hailstorm that punched holes in cars in Andalusia.

Heavy rains continued further north on Thursday and the Spanish weather agency issued a red alert for several counties in Castellón, the northernmost province of the Valencia region, and an orange alert for southern Tarragona to the north -eastern Catalonia, and the west coast of Cádiz. across the country in the southwest.

“This storm front is still present,” Sánchez said. “Stay at home and follow official advice and you will help save lives.”

A man reacts while waiting for news of his loved ones stuck during floods in Valencia, Spain, Thursday, October 31, 2024. (Alberto Saiz/AP)

The search continues amid the destruction

More than a thousand soldiers from Spain’s emergency rescue units joined regional and local rescue workers to search for bodies and survivors. Soldiers had recovered 22 bodies and rescued 110 people by Wednesday evening.

“We are searching house by house,” Ángel Martínez, a member of a military emergency unit, told Spanish national radio RNE from the town of Utiel, where at least six people died.

Some 150,000 Valencia residents were without electricity on Wednesday, but almost half had it on Thursday, Spanish news agency EFE reported. An unknown number had no running water. Many bought every bottle of water they could find.

People walked past stranded cars blocking the roads. The region remained partly isolated with several roads cut and train lines disrupted, including high-speed service to Madrid, which authorities say will not be repaired for several days.

A man cried in footage from national broadcaster RTVE as he showed the shell of what was once the ground floor of his house in Catarroja, a town south of Valencia. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside and destroyed his furniture and belongings, even removing paint from some of the walls and leaving mud in its wake.

A man cleans his flood-affected house in Utiel, Spain, Wednesday, October 30, 2024. (Manu Fernandez/AP)

Officials questioned over late flood warnings

This severe weather event surprised regional government officials. Spain’s national weather service said it had rained more in eight hours in the Valencian town of Chiva than in the previous 20 months, calling the deluge “extraordinary.”

But the relative calm of the next day also gave time to reflect and wonder whether authorities could have done more to limit the damage. The regional government of Valencia is being criticized for only sending flood warnings to citizens’ cell phones at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, when flooding had already started in some areas and well after the national meteorological agency had issued a red alert for heavy rain.

Andreu Salom, mayor of the Valencian village of L’Alcudia, told RTVE that his town had lost at least two residents, a girl and her elderly mother who lived together, and that police were still searching for the missing truck driver .

He also complained that he and his residents were not warned of the disaster, which occurred on Tuesday evening, when the Magro River burst its banks.

“I was on my way to check the river level myself because I had no information,” Salom said. “I went there with the local police but we had to turn back because a tsunami of water, mud, reeds and earth was already entering the town.”

Mari Carmen Pérez said on the phone from Barrio de la Torre that her phone rang with the flood warning after rushing waters had already forced open the front door and filled her living room, kitchen and bathroom , forcing his family to flee upstairs.

“They had no idea what was going on,” said Pérez, a professional cleaner. “Everything is ruined. People here, we’ve never seen anything like this.

Valencia regional president Carlos Mazón defended his administration’s handling of the crisis, saying “all our supervisors followed standard protocol.”

Wilson reported from Barcelona, ​​Spain. Associated Press writer Teresa Medrano in Madrid contributed to this report.