PAIPORTA, Spain — A crowd of enraged survivors threw clots of mud left by storm-triggered flooding at the Spanish royal couple on Sunday during their first visit to the center of their country’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory.

Spain’s national broadcaster reported that the barrage included some stones and other objects and that two bodyguards were treated for injuries. He could be seen with a bloody wound on his forehead.

It is an unprecedented incident for a royal house that carefully shapes the image of monarchs adored by their country of more than 48 million people.

Spanish fury was unleashed against a state that seemed outdated and incapable of meeting the needs of a population accustomed to living under an effective government.

Authorities also rushed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez from the scene shortly after his contingent began roaming the mud-covered streets of one of the hardest-hit areas, where more than 60 people died and thousands lost their lives. were broken. The climate change-fueled disaster has killed at least 205 people in eastern Spain.

“Get out! Get out!” and “Killers!” “, shouted the crowd in the town of Paiporta, among other insults. Bodyguards opened umbrellas to protect royals and other officials from the flying mud.

The police had to intervene, some on horseback, to contain the crowd of several dozen people, some brandishing shovels and poles.

Queen Letizia broke down in sympathetic tears after speaking to several people, including a woman who cried in her arms. Later, one of the Queen’s bodyguards had a bloody wound on his forehead and there was a hole in the rear window of the Prime Minister’s official car.

But even after being forced to seek protection, King Felipe VI, his face covered in mud, remained calm and made several efforts to speak to locals. He insisted on trying to talk with people while trying to continue his visit. He spoke to several people, patting two young men on the back and sharing a quick hug, with mud stains on his black raincoat.

Yet one woman hit an official car with an umbrella and another kicked it before it sped off.

Although far from arousing British passion for their royal family, Felipe and Letizia’s public events are usually greeted by crowds of fans.

Felipe, 56, came to the throne when his father, Juan Carlos, abdicated in 2014 after being tarnished by financial and personal scandals he himself caused. Felipe immediately made a new figure, renouncing his personal inheritance and increasing the financial transparency of his royal house. He and Letizia, a 52-year-old former journalist, devote a significant part of their public agenda to cultural and scientific causes.

Visits to sites of national tragedies are also part of the royal duties of monarchs, seen as a stabilizing force in a parliamentary monarchy restored after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

The king then told regional authorities, at the command post of emergency response efforts, that they must give “hope to those who have been affected by the floods and respond to their needs, ensuring that the state is there for them.”

Public anger at the haphazard management of the crisis has increased. Felipe heard a few boos when he took part in a tribute to the dead of the deadly 2017 terrorist attack in Barcelona, ​​but it was nothing like Sunday’s reception.

The Queen had small drops of mud on her hands and arms when she spoke to the women.

“We don’t have any water,” one woman told him.

Many people still do not have drinking water five days after the floods. Internet and mobile phone coverage remain patchy. Most people didn’t have power restored until Saturday. Shops and supermarkets are in ruins and Paiporta, population 30,000, still has many blocks completely blocked by piles of trash, countless destroyed cars and an ever-present layer of mud.

Thousands of people saw their homes destroyed by a tsunami-like wave of mud and outrage over the mishandling of the disaster began.

Floods had already hit Paiporta when regional authorities issued a mobile phone alert. It seemed two hours too late.

Anger was further fueled by the authorities’ failure to respond quickly to the consequences. Most of the cleaning up of the layers and layers of mud and debris that engulfed countless homes was done by residents and thousands of volunteers.

“We lost everything!” » someone shouted.

On Sunday, the cries included demands for the resignation of Valencia region president Carlo Mazón, whose administration is in charge of civil protection, as well as “Where is Pedro Sánchez?”

“I understand the indignation and of course I stayed to receive it,” Mazón said on X. “It was my moral and political obligation. The king’s attitude this morning was exemplary.”

Spanish national broadcaster RTVE reported that the barrage targeting members of the royal family included some stones and other hard objects thrown and that two bodyguards were treated for injuries, and that monarchs and officials called off another stop Sunday in a second hard-hit village, Chiva. , about half an hour east of the city of Valencia.

Sánchez said recovery efforts will not be derailed by the incident.

“I want to express all the solidarity of my government and its recognition of the anguish, suffering, uncertainty and needs of the residents of Paiporta and the Valencia region,” said Sánchez, while adding that he believes that the majority of people “reject the types of violence that we have unfortunately seen today.”

The denigration scene occurred as thousands of other Spanish soldiers, national police officers and Civil Guard gendarmes were arriving or about to arrive at the disaster sites.

Wilson reported from Valencia, Spain.