Emergency teams in Spain are continuing their efforts to locate dozens of people still missing in what is the worst flooding disaster in generations.
More than 200 people are known to have died, with most of the fatalities occurring in the Valencia region, but the death toll is expected to rise.
The floods destroyed bridges and covered towns with mud, leaving cut-off communities without water, food or electricity.
Some residents say more lives could have been saved if local authorities had warned of the flood risk sooner.
Among them is Juan González, who lives in the town of Aldaia in Valencia. He told the BBC the loss there was devastating.
“This is an area prone to flash flooding. It’s outrageous that our local government didn’t do anything about it, knowing this was coming, and they didn’t do anything about it,” he said.
Another local resident, Augustin, said the flat where he lived with his wife and children was completely flooded and they had to move in with his parents.
The Civil Protection Agency, overseen by the regional government, issued an emergency warning to the phones of people in and around the city of Valencia after 8pm local time (7pm GMT) on Tuesday. By then, the flood waters had quickly disappeared. increasing in many areas and in some cases already causing major damage.
Questions remain about the timing of the warning and whether Spain has an adequate natural disaster warning system.
Mireia, who lives close to some of the destruction in Valencia, said people were “completely unprepared”.
“A lot of people were in their cars, they couldn’t get out,” she said. “They just drowned because of the water.”
Thousands of volunteers are currently helping the Spanish army and emergency services in the rescue and clean-up operation, and Valencia regional president Carlos Mazon said more troops would be deployed.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez expressed his gratitude to the volunteers on social media, calling them an “example of solidarity and the boundless dedication of Spanish society.”
He has promised that his government will do whatever is necessary to help the victims of the disaster.
In the devastated town of Paiporta, where more than 60 people have been killed so far, residents have expressed frustration that aid is coming in too slowly.
“There are not enough firefighters, the shovels have not arrived,” Paco Clemente, a 33-year-old pharmacist, told news agency AFP as he helped clear mud from a friend’s house.
Dozens of people have been arrested for looting, with one Aldaia resident telling AFP he saw thieves taking items from an abandoned supermarket because “people are a bit desperate”.
ReutersMeanwhile, Spanish authorities have issued a red alert for heavy rainfall on the south coast.
It includes the Huelva region, which has already been hit hard by downpours. In the city of Cartaya, about two months of rain fell in just ten hours.
There are warnings of further heavy falls on Saturday.
One of the factors contributing to the disaster was the lack of rainfall during the rest of the year, which prevented the soil in many areas of eastern and southern Spain from absorbing rainwater efficiently.
The warming climate also likely contributed to the severity of the flooding.
In a preliminary report, World Weather Attribution (WWA), a group of international scientists investigating the role of global warming in extreme weather, found that the rainfall that hit Spain was 12% heavier due to climate change and that the weather conditions were twice as many as in Spain. probably.
