'We were trapped like rats': Spain's floods bring devastation and despair | Spain

TThe gratitude that greeted Tuesday's downpours was short-lived in Utiel. When the longed-for rains finally reached the city in the drought-stricken eastern Spanish region of Valencia, they were merciless in their abundance.

“At first people were very happy because they were praying for rain as their land needed water,” said Remedios, who owns a bar in Utiel. “But by 12 p.m. this storm had really hit and we were all pretty scared.”

Trapped in the bar, she and a handful of her customers could only sit and watch as Spain's worst flooding in nearly 30 years caused the Magro River to burst its banks, stranding some residents in their homes and sending cars and trash cans through the streets were flooded with muddy floodwaters.

“The rising water brought mud and rocks and they were so strong that they broke the road surface,” said Remedios, who only gave her first name.

“The tunnel leading into the city was half filled with mud, trees were down and cars and dumpsters were rolling through the streets. My outdoor patio was destroyed – the chairs and umbrellas were all swept away. It’s just a disaster.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, the death toll in Valencia and the neighboring Castile-La Mancha region stood at 72. Utiel's mayor, Ricardo Gabaldón, told the Las Provincias newspaper that some of the city's residents did not survive the floods but could not provide assistance with an exact number.

Hours earlier, Gabaldón had told Spanish national broadcaster RTVE that Tuesday was the worst day of his life. “We were trapped like rats,” he said. “Cars and dumpsters streamed through the streets. The water rose to three meters.”

People in the city fear that some of the dead may be elderly people who were unable to escape the floods. Remedios said: “Anyone who could reach a higher level did, but there were some old people who couldn't even open their front doors and they were trapped there in their own houses.”

Residents of La Torre, on the outskirts of the city of Valencia, were faced with similar scenes on Wednesday morning.

“The neighborhood is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it's literally destroyed,” Christian Viena, a bar owner in the area, told the Associated Press by phone. “Everything is a total wreck, everything is ready to be thrown away. The mud is almost a foot deep.”

Spain's weather agency Aemet said more than 300 liters of rain per square meter (30 cm) fell on Tuesday in the area between Utiel and the town of Chiva, 50 km away. In Chiva, almost a whole year's worth of rain fell in just eight hours.

The heavy rains have come as Spain continues to suffer from a severe drought. Last year the government approved an unprecedented €2.2 billion (£1.9 billion) plan to help farmers and consumers cope with the ongoing lack of rain. At the same time, there were warnings that the climate would only get worse and more unpredictable in the future.

“Spain is a country accustomed to periods of drought, but there is no doubt that as a result of the climate change we are experiencing, we are experiencing far more frequent and intense events and phenomena,” Environment Minister Teresa Ribera, said.

A disturbing picture of human and economic damage emerged over the course of Wednesday. Spain declared three days of national mourning.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the entire country felt the pain of those who lost their loved ones and urged people to take all possible precautions as torrential rains spread to the northeast of the country.

Defense Minister Margarita Robles said 1,000 military emergency unit members were deployed to support regional emergency services. It also offered mobile morgues in a sign that more bodies could be trapped in mud and houses.

A man used a call to RTVE to ask for news about his son Leonardo Enrique Rivera, who disappeared in his Fiat van on Tuesday after working as a delivery driver in the Valencian town of Riba-roja.

“I haven’t heard from him since 6:55 a.m. yesterday,” said Leonardo Enrique. “It was raining heavily and then I received news that the van was flooded and it had been hit by another vehicle. That was the last thing I heard.”

Esther Gómez, a city councilor in Riba-roja, said workers were stranded in an industrial area overnight with “no chance of saving them” as streams overflowed their banks. “It has been a long time since this happened and we are scared,” she told Agence France-Presse.

As the search for the dead continued, experts warned that the torrential rains and subsequent flooding were further evidence of the reality of the climate emergency.

“There is no doubt that these explosive downpours have been exacerbated by climate change,” said Dr. Friederike Otto, head of global weather attribution at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.

“For every fraction of a degree of warming from fossil fuels, the atmosphere can retain more moisture, leading to greater rainfall outbreaks. These deadly floods are another reminder of how dangerous climate change has become with just 1.3°C of warming. But last week the United Nations warned that we will see warming of up to 3.1°C by the end of the century.”

There were similar, albeit differently expressed, feelings in Utiel on Wednesday. “There was a guy with me yesterday who is 73 years old and he said he had never seen anything like this in all his years,” Remedios said. “Never.”