Nation mourns as death toll rises above 150

At least 158 ​​people have died in Spain’s worst flooding disaster in generations, as rescuers battle to find survivors.

On Thursday, more than 1,200 workers, aided by drones, were deployed for the rescue mission as rain continued to threaten parts of the country.

“Right now the most important thing is to save as many lives as possible,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told victims during a visit to affected communities.

But in some of the towns hardest hit by Tuesday night’s flooding, people had to pull bodies from the mud and wreckage.

At least 155 deaths were recorded in Valencia, while two more were registered in Castilla-La Mancha, in the west of the province, and another, a British man, in Andalusia.

At least 40 deaths have been recorded so far in the town of Paiporta, Valencia, where a river burst its banks.

“We all know someone who has died,” said pharmacist Miguel Guerrilla, standing outside his pharmacy, which was covered in thick mud.

“It’s a nightmare.”

On Thursday, the BBC saw funeral directors and funeral cars removing bodies from the streets, while cars swept away by the storm surge were piled on top of each other on nearby roads.

Motorists have told the horror of being trapped by rising tides on Tuesday, turning highways and streets into rivers. Many who survived climbed trees or bridges to escape.

Officials did not reveal the number of people still missing but said there were “many” as the death toll rose by another 60 deaths on Thursday.

On Wednesday alone, more than 90 deaths were recorded in the immediate aftermath of the torrential rains and flash floods, which largely affected Valencia, as well as Castilla-La Mancha and as far south as Malaga.

According to the Spanish meteorological agency Aemet, the town of Chiva near Valencia received the equivalent of one year’s rain in just eight hours.

As rain warnings were again issued for the south and east of the country on Thursday, King Felipe VI warned that the emergency was “still not over” and Prime Minister Sánchez warned citizens to take shelter where necessary.

Meanwhile, in flood-affected areas, hundreds of people are sheltering in temporary housing and beginning the slow, arduous task of clearing streets and repairing homes and businesses.

Many roads and the rail network connecting Valencia to the rest of Spain are still closed.

Spain began an official three-day period of national mourning on Thursday with flags at half-mast on government buildings and minutes of silence.

Public anger is growing over how a developed European country appeared to fail to warn many communities of the flood risk in time.

Questions have been raised about whether emergency response agencies issued warnings too late.

The Civil Protection Agency, which is deployed in national disasters, only issued an alert at 8:15 pm local time on Tuesday evening, when several places in Valencia were flooded for hours.

Authorities are calling the rain showers and flooding ‘unprecedented’.

There are many factors that contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere due to climate change is making extreme rainfall events more likely.

Weather researchers have identified the likely main cause of the intense rainfall as a ‘gota fria’ – a natural weather event that hits Spain in autumn and winter when cold air descends on warmer waters over the Mediterranean.

However, the rise in global temperatures had led to the clouds bringing more rain, scientists told the BBC.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since the start of the industrial age, and temperatures will continue to rise unless governments around the world dramatically reduce emissions.

“There is no doubt that these explosive rainfall events have been amplified by climate change,” said Dr. Friederike Otto of Imperial College London, who leads an international group of scientists trying to understand the role that warming plays in these types of events .

The death toll from flooding in Spain is the highest since 1973, when at least 150 people are estimated to have died in the southeastern provinces of Granada, Murcia and Almeria.