The elderly residents of the retirement home in the Spanish town of Paiporta were sitting down to dinner as a light rain pattered against the windows.

They ate and chatted as usual, thinking that the worst of the storms in the Valencia region may pass them by.

But then a torrent of water suddenly broke through the facility’s perimeter wall, surging through the gardens and into the dining hall.

Panic broke out as the flood waters rose quickly from the feet to the knees and then above the chest of the 120 residents, many confined to wheelchairs.