95 people reported dead amid floods in Spain. Image: Euronews
(The Post News)– On Wednesday, Spain braced for a heavier toll after 95 people died in flash floods that launched muddy waters through towns, tossed cars, and wreaked transport havoc. Three days of official mourning were scheduled to begin on Thursday, and rescuers were expected to discover additional bodies in the European nation’s deadliest disaster in over 50 years.
In neighboring Castilla-La Manch, two people have been reported dead and another one in Andalusia in the south. According to Angel Victor Torres, government minister, the death toll is most likely to rise due to the many missing people. Carlos Mazon, head of the Valencia region, told reporters from TVE that there were no longer people to save from roofs or terraces through aerial means. Mazon also said that emergency services had deployed over 200 rescues on the ground and 70 aerial evacuations throughout the day.
AEMET, Spain’s weather service, has recorded 491mm of rain in just eight hours on Tuesday in the town of Chiva, which is west of Valencia. This amount of rain is said to be equivalent to a year’s worth of rain. Mazon says that damage to telephone networks and flooded roads was hampering efforts to reach stricken communities in the Valencia region, but rescuers’ access to all urban hubs was restored by Wednesday evening.
According to energy company Iberdola, at least 155 000 homes were without power in Valencia, but it has dispatched 500 workers to restore power in the region. Authorities in Valencia had announced that survivors are being sheltered in temporary accommodation like fire stations. Rail and air transport are reported to remain severely interrupted, and rail infrastructure authority Adif has announced that the high-speed line between Valencia and Madrid will be suspended for at least the next four days.
The remaining red alerts were removed in the evening by AEMET, despite some downpours that are expected to continue. Scientists have warned that extreme weather events like storms are intensifying, lasting longer, and having a more frequent occurrence due to human-induced climate change.
A senior lecturer in environmental systems at Britain’s Open University, Leslie Mabon, says that these extremes can overwhelm the ability of existing defenses and contingency plans to cope, even in a relatively wealthy country like Spain. Hydrology professor at the University of Reading, Hannah Cloke, states that the heavy death toll came after warning for extreme rainfall, which suggests the flood alert system in Valencia failed.
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