Spanish rescuers search garages for bodies after devastating floods

Spanish rescuers are searching inundated garages in Valencia for bodies after devastating floods.

The death toll stands at 217, almost all in the eastern Valencia region, in Spain’s worst such disaster in decades.

National weather service AEMET announced the end of the emergency for Valencia but placed part of the northeastern Catalonia region on the highest red alert for torrential rain on Monday.

Catalan trains were suspended until further notice, Transport Minister Oscar Puente announced on X, while flights were delayed and diverted at Barcelona’s El Prat airport.

Thousands of soldiers, police officers, civil guards and firefighters spent a sixth day distributing aid and clearing mud and debris to find bodies.

But relief works have reached only some towns days after the disaster and in many cases, volunteers were the first to provide food, water, sanitation and cleaning equipment.

“We shouldn’t romanticise it: the people saved the people because we were abandoned,” said Jorge, a resident of the town of Chiva, where the king and queen cancelled their visit on Sunday after crowds in Paiporta hurled mud and insults at the royals.

The applause should be for the volunteers, not “those who come just to take a picture and show off”, the 25-year-old told the AFP news agency.

Divers on Monday concentrated their search for missing bodies in garages and a multistorey car park in the town of Aldaia capable of holding thousands of vehicles.

The storm caught many victims in their vehicles on roads and in underground spaces such as car parks, tunnels and garages where rescue operations are particularly difficult.

Local authorities extended travel restrictions for another two days to facilitate the work of the emergency services, cancelled classes in Valencia and urged citizens to work from home.

Storms coming off the Mediterranean are common for the season. But scientists have warned human-induced climate change is increasing the ferocity, length and frequency of extreme weather events.

“Politicians haven’t acted on climate change, and now we’re paying the consequences of their inaction,” environmental activist Emi, 21, told AFP in Chiva.