CHIVA, Spain. — The death toll of historic flash floods In Spain, the number rose to at least 205 on Friday, with many more believed to be missing, as initial shock gave way to anger, frustration and an outpouring of solidarity.

Spanish emergency authorities said 202 of the victims were in the Valencia region alone, and authorities warned that more rain was expected in the coming days.

The damage caused by Tuesday and Wednesday’s storm is reminiscent of the aftermath of a tsunami, with survivors left to pick up the pieces as they mourn loved ones lost in Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory. Many streets were still blocked by piled up vehicles and debrisin some cases trapping residents in their homes. Some places still don’t have electricity, running water or stable phone connections.

“The situation is incredible. It’s a disaster and there is very little help,” said Emilio Cuartero, a resident of Masanasa, a suburb of Valencia. “We need machines, cranes, so that the sites are accessible. We need a lot of help. And bread and water.

In Chiva, residents were busy Friday clearing debris from muddy streets. The Valencian city received more rain in eight hours on Tuesday than in the previous 20 months, and water overflowed a ravine that runs through the city, tearing away roads and walls from houses.

The mayor, Amparo Fort, told RNE radio that “entire houses have disappeared, we don’t know if there were people inside or not.”

So far, 205 bodies have been found: 202 in Valencia, two in the Castilla La Mancha region and one in Andalusia. Members of the security forces and the military are busy research Among an unknown number of people reported missing, many feared being trapped in wrecked vehicles or flooded garages.

“I’ve been there all my life, all my memories are there, my parents lived there… and now, in one night, everything is gone,” Chiva resident Juan Vicente Pérez told The Associated Press Press, near where he lost his home. “If we had waited five more minutes, we wouldn’t be here in this world.”

Before and after satellite images of the city of Valencia illustrated the scale of the disaster, showing the transformation of the Mediterranean metropolis into a landscape flooded with muddy waters. The V-33 highway was completely covered in the brown of a thick layer of mud.

The tragedy triggered a wave of local solidarity. Residents of communities like Paiporta – where at least 62 people have died – and Catarroja have walked miles through sticky mud to Valencia to get supplies, passing neighbors from unaffected areas who bring water, produce essentials and shovels or brooms to help remove. the mud. The number of people coming to help is so high that authorities have asked them not to drive there because they are blocking roads needed for emergency services.

In addition to the contributions of volunteers, associations such as the Red Cross and town halls distribute food.

And as authorities keep repeating, more storms are expected. The Spanish weather agency has issued heavy rain warnings for Tarragona, Catalonia, as well as part of the Balearic Islands.

Meanwhile, flood survivors and volunteers are engaged in the mammoth task of clearing a pervasive layer of dense mud. The storm knocked out power and water services Tuesday evening, but about 85% of the 155,000 affected customers had power restored by Friday, the utility said in a statement.

“It’s a disaster. There are many elderly people who do not have medication. There are children who don’t have food. We don’t have milk, we don’t have water. We don’t have access to anything,” a resident of Alfafar, one of the worst-hit towns in southern Valencia, told public television channel TVE. “No one even came to tell us the first day. »

Juan Ramón Adsuara, mayor of Alfafar, said the aid was far from enough for residents stuck in an “extreme situation”.

“There are people who live with corpses in their homes. It’s very sad. We organize ourselves, but we lack everything,” he told reporters. “We go to Valencia in vans, we buy and we come back, but here we are totally forgotten.”

Precipitated water transformed the narrow streets into death traps and rivers spawned rivers that destroyed homes and businesses, leaving many uninhabitable. Some stores were looted and authorities arrested 50 people.

Social networks have channeled the needs of the people concerned. Some have posted images of missing people in the hope of gaining information on their whereabouts, while others have launched initiatives such as Suport Mutu – or Mutual Support – which connects requests for help with the people who need it. propose. Others organized collections of essential goods across the country or launched fundraisers.

Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the most powerful flash flood in recent memory. Scientists link it to climate change, which is also causing increasingly high temperatures and droughts in Spain and around the world. warming of the Mediterranean Sea.

Human-caused climate change has doubled the likelihood of a storm like this week’s deluge in Valencia, according to a partial analysis released Thursday by World Weather Attribution, a group of dozens of international scientists who study the role of global warming in extreme weather conditions.

Spain suffered a nearly two-year drought, worsening flooding because the dry soil was so hard it could not absorb the rain.

In August 1996, a flood swept away a campsite along the Gallego River in Biescas, in the northeast, killing 87 people.

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Medrano reported from Madrid.