The death toll from Spain's worst floods in a generation has climbed to 205, rescuers said on Friday, November 1, with the number expected to rise as more people are believed missing.
The agency coordinating emergency services in the eastern Valencia region said 202 people had been confirmed dead there, with officials in Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia previously announcing a combined three deaths in their regions.
Many streets are still blocked by piled-up vehicles and debris, in some cases trapping residents in their homes. Some places still don't have electricity, running water, or stable telephone connections.
In Chiva, residents were busy Friday clearing debris from mud-filled streets. The Valencian town received more rain in eight hours on Tuesday than it had in the preceding 20 months, and water overflowed a gully that crosses the town, tearing up roads and walls of houses. The mayor, Amparo Fort, told RNE radio that "entire houses have disappeared, we don’t know if there were people inside or not."
The tragedy has unleashed a wave of local solidarity. Residents in communities like Paiporta – where at least 62 people died – and Catarroja have been walking kilometers in sticky mud to Valencia to get supplies, passing neighbors from unaffected areas who are bringing carry water, essential products, shovels or brooms to help remove the mud. The large number of people coming to help has led the authorities to ask them not to drive there, because they block the roads needed by the emergency services.
In addition to the contributions of volunteers, associations such as the Red Cross and town councils are distributing food. And as authorities repeat over and over, more storms are expected. The Spanish weather agency issued alerts for strong rains in Tarragona, Catalonia, as well as part of the Balearic Islands.
Meanwhile, flood survivors and volunteers are engaged in the titanic task of clearing an omnipresent layer of dense mud. The storm cut power and water services on Tuesday night, but about 85% of 155,000 affected customers had their power back on by Friday, the utility said in a statement.
Spain has suffered through an almost two-year drought, making the flooding worse because the dry ground was so hard that it could not absorb the rain. In August 1996, a flood swept away a campsite along the Gallego river in Biescas, in the northeast, killing 87 people.