A British pensioner has died in Spain after parts of the country's southwest were rocked by a year's worth of rain in just one day.

The man, 71, died in hospital after being rescued from his Malaga home, the leader of the Andalusia regional government Juanma Moreno has said.

On social media, Moreno wrote: "He was suffering from hypothermia and died after suffering several cardiac arrests."

The number of people killed by the extreme flooding now stands at at least 73, according to local authorities.

The number of people killed by the extreme flooding now stands at at least 73

In fellow south-western city Valencia, a year's worth rain had fallen in just eight hours - devastating roads, bridges and farmland in one of Spain's key agricultural regions.

Residents in some of the worst-hit places said they had seen people clambering onto the roofs of their cars as brown water surged through the streets, uprooting trees and destroying parts of buildings.

One, petrol station worker Denis Hlavaty who was forced to find shelter on a ledge at his workplace, said: "It's a river that came through.

"The doors were torn away and I spent the night there, surrounded by water that was 2 metres deep."

A year's worth rain had fallen in just eight hours in Valencia

Another resident, construction worker Antonio Carmona, said the floods "took away lots of dogs, lots of horses, they took away everything."

Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez has promised to rebuild infrastructure that had been destroyed, saying in a televised address: "For those who at this moment are still looking for their loved ones, the whole of Spain weeps with you."

The disaster - in a region where some 90,000 Britons are resident - is the deadliest spate of floods in Spain since 1996, when 87 people died near a town in the Pyrenees.

And more broadly, it's set to be the worst in Europe since 2021, when at least 185 people died in Germany.

The torrential rain has devastated infrastructure in Spain

Roads and vehicles were left covered in mud after the floodwaters hit