Nearly 160 dead – flash flood in Spain: “Were trapped like rats”

Thousands of people are still missing, and many more are in life-threatening situations. In addition, hundreds of thousands of people are without electricity, countless roads are closed, bridges have been destroyed and train traffic is paralyzed. Images of countless vehicles turned into piles of scrap metal by the bodies of water are going around the world.

Mayor: “Worst day of my life”
“Cars and garbage containers just flowed down the street,” said Ricardo Gabaldón, the mayor of Utiel, describing the situation on Spanish television. “The water rose to three meters.” Last Tuesday was the worst day of his life. “We were trapped like rats,” he remembers of the hopeless situation.

The river overflowed within a few minutes
The river burst its banks within “three to four minutes,” a resident of the village of L’Alcudia in the particularly hard-hit Valencia region told Spanish broadcaster TVE. “The entire landscape has changed completely in a short time.” Countless streets soon turned into raging rivers.

The residents of the region in particular complain about the short preparation time for the disaster, while the weather services had predicted enormous amounts of rain.

Were the warnings too hesitant?
In fact, civil defense warnings went out to the mobile phones of everyone in the Valencia region around 8:10 pm on Tuesday, as the state broadcaster RTVE reconstructs. But the warnings from civil defense were only given in the evening, when the first rivers had already burst their banks. Despite the storm, many people traveled in their cars and risked being stranded or swept away by the current.

But it had started to rain hours earlier, noted the newspaper “El País”. And wrote further: The weather service Aemet had already declared the highest warning level around 7:30 am on Tuesday morning, which means a very high danger.

Rainfall of Biblical proportions
In some places, as much rain fell in one day as usual in a year – in some places in the Valencia region, according to Aemet, up to 400 liters per square meter. Individual stations even reported up to 600 liters of water. People, cars and trees, as well as infrastructure, were swept away by the floods. There was great destruction in many places. More rainfall fell in eight hours than during the most recent flood in Austria in five days.

The region previously suffered from catastrophic drought
“People were actually very happy at first,” recalls Remedios, who owns a bar in Utiel in Valencia, Spain, recalling the hours before the flood of the century. The region has recently suffered from drought and water shortages, and rain that started on Tuesday provided some initial relief.

“But at noon the storm really hit us and we were all quite scared,” Remedios continued in an interview with the Guardian. The mood changed in a very short time when the bar owner and his customers realized the seriousness of the situation. A 73-year-old told him that he had never experienced such a catastrophe in his entire life, Remedios reports on the flood.

Rescuers in constant use
“The situation on the ground is dramatic,” said Gerald Creator, chairman of the Austrian Red Cross. “Hundreds of colleagues from the Spanish Red Cross are working around the clock to alleviate the consequences of the disaster for the people affected. The rescuers are constantly busy caring for the injured. Now it is important to show solidarity and support the Red Cross in its important work.”

No information yet about affected Austrians
The Austrian Foreign Ministry had no indications that Austrians had been affected by the disaster. “We currently have no information about this,” said a spokeswoman. “The Austrian Embassy in Madrid is in contact with a handful of Austrian travelers who are currently in the storm-affected regions of Spain. They are all doing well.” Those affected can contact the emergency number of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (+43 501150-4411) at any time.