An enraged crowd in hard-hit Paiporta hurled mud and other objects at officials during a visit to the epicenter of the flood damage on Sunday.
In a matter of minutes, flash floods caused by heavy downpours in eastern Spain swept away almost everything in their path. With no time to react, people were trapped in vehicles, homes and businesses. Many died and thousands of livelihoods were shattered.
Five days later, authorities have recovered 217 bodies — with 213 of them in the eastern Valencia region. They continued to search on Sunday for an unknown number of missing people with the help of some 5,000 fresh soldiers who arrived over the weekend.
An enraged crowd in hard-hit Paiporta hurled mud and other objects at Spain’s royals, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and regional officials when the leaders made their first visit to the epicenter of the flood damage on Sunday.
Thousands of volunteers were helping to clear away the thick layers of mud and debris that still covered houses, streets and roads, all while facing drinking water cuts and shortages of some basic goods. Inside some of the vehicles that the water washed away or trapped in underground garages, there were still bodies waiting to be identified.
Here are a few things to know about Spain’s deadliest storm in living memory:
The storms concentrated over the Magro and Turia river basins and, in the Poyo riverbed, produced walls of water that overflowed riverbanks, catching people unaware as they went on with their daily lives on Tuesday evening and early Wednesday.
In the blink of an eye, the muddy water covered roads and railways, and entered houses and businesses in towns and villages on the southern outskirts of Valencia city. Drivers had to take shelter on car roofs, while residents took refuge on higher ground.
Spain’s national weather service said that in the hard-hit locality of Chiva, it rained more in eight hours than it had in the preceding 20 months, calling the deluge “extraordinary.
