At least 95 killed and dozens missing in Spain’s flash floods

By Lauren Kent, Sophie Tanno, Atika Shubert, Taylor Ward, Mauricio Torres and Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN

(CNN) — At least 95 people have been killed by severe flash floods in Spain, according to authorities on Wednesday, as emergency responders scramble to find dozens of missing people.

In the worst-affected region of Valencia, 92 people were killed, according to Angel Victor Torres, Spain’s minister of territorial policy and democratic memory. Two others died in Castile-La-Mancha, and one person in Andalusia.

Several locations in southern and eastern Spain were hit with up to 12 inches of rain in just a few hours on Tuesday, in what marked the worst rainfall in Valencia in 28 years, according to state weather agency AEMET.

Emergency services in Valencia, the city of Malaga, and Castile-La-Mancha, among other regions, said they were still working on finding dozens of missing people.

Emiliano García-Page, president of Castile-La-Mancha’s regional government, compared the deluge to a levee breaking. “It’s not a rain pour, it was like a dam burst,” García-Page told Spain’s national broadcaster TVE. “People were calling [emergency numbers] crying, asking for help and it was almost impossible to reach them.”

The badly hit Valencia region was thrown into a state of chaos, with most highways becoming completely unusable on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Vehicles that had been left abandoned in traffic were picked up by the water and moved around.

A courthouse was turned into a temporary morgue in the regional capital, also called Valencia, said local authorities, as the death toll is feared to climb.

At least 40 people, six of whom were in a retirement home, died in the town of Paiporta in Valencia, Spanish state news agency EFE reported, citing its mayor.

Videos posted by several rescue agencies on Wednesday show entire streets flooded, people stuck on rooftops and cars piled up and flipped over.

Around 1,200 people are thought to still be trapped in different parts of a highway in Valencia, and 5,000 vehicles are blocked as a result of the surging flood waters, EFE reported, citing Spain’s Guardia Civil.

Trains have been suspended in the Valencia region, as have other major public services in other affected regions. Schools, museums, and public libraries in the Valencia region will be closed on Thursday, according to the local government.

In Malaga, in the Andalusia region, a 71-year-old British man died from hypothermia, according to the city’s mayor, Francisco de la Torre.

‘We don’t know where our parents are’

Survivors and family members of the missing spoke to TVE about the terrifying downpour. “It was agonizing. When we saw the water rising and reaching the first floor of the house we went to the roof,” one resident told TVE. “We stayed on the roof until 4 a.m. [11 p.m. ET Tuesday]. We didn’t have water, we were cold. Finally, the helicopter arrived.”

“Everything is destroyed, but at least we are here to tell [the story],” she added.

Petruta Sandu’s family was also caught off-guard by the sudden flooding. She last spoke to her parents late on Tuesday night when they had been trapped on the roof of their car as waters rose around them.

“Since the 10 p.m. last night, we don’t know anything about our parents,” she told TVE. “My brother-in-law walked almost 7 km [over 4 miles] through knee-deep water to find the helicopter and find the vehicle but they didn’t find anyone. We don’t know where our parents are.”

In towns close to rivers such as Utiel or Paiporta, water spilled onto the streets, CNN en Español reported. Vans, cars and garbage cans were swept away by currents that, in some cases, reached the first floor of buildings.

AEMET reports that the “cold drop” that caused the flooding is the worst Valencia has experienced this century, but adds that it is too early to tell if climate change is to blame. The term “cold drop” refers to a pool of cooler air high in the atmosphere, which can separate from the jet stream, causing it to move slowly and often lead to high-impact rainfall events. The phenomenon is most common in autumn.

The sheer amount of rain that fell meant many were taken by surprise, with people finding themselves trapped in their basements or first floors and unable to get to safety.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday that his government would use all means necessary to help victims of the floods, as he asked people to remain vigilant. He is set to visit Valencia on Thursday.

Defense Minister Margarita Robles described the flooding as an “unprecedented phenomenon,” CNN en Español reported. Robles said that more than 1,000 members of the military had been deployed to assist in rescue efforts.

The Spanish government has decreed three days of official mourning for victims of the flooding, starting on Thursday.

A local resident from one of the affected towns, Antonio Carmona, described to CNN what happened when the floods hit. “When we looked by here, we saw everything going down. (The water) took cars, it took down half of the house of one of our neighbors.”

Carmona pointed to his torn clothing, saying he and others had been saving dogs caught up in the flooding.

One woman named Beatriz Garrote was driving home from work in the city of Torrent in Valencia on Tuesday evening when she found herself trapped on a stretch of the ring road by the rising water for several hours alongside other drivers, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais.

“I went past the first exit, which was for Paiporta, but it was closed because they told us that the town was flooded there and we couldn’t exit,” she said, El Pais reported. She said her car then got stuck “and suddenly the two lanes closest to the exit started flooding.”

She described feeling “very scared” as water levels rose rapidly. “I didn’t know where it was coming from or what was happening. The water started to rise very quickly.

“After 10 minutes, it was halfway up the car’s wheel. One of the volunteers told us to turn the cars around but there was no possible exit.”

The human-caused climate crisis is making extreme weather more frequent and more severe, scientists say.

As the world warms due to fossil fuel pollution, the most intense rain events are getting heavier and more frequent. Hotter oceans fuel stronger storms and a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, which it wrings out in the form of torrential rainfall.

Rainfall warnings continue through Wednesday for portions of eastern and southern Spain, according to AEMET, with the threat of heavy rain expected to continue through the end of the week.

This story has been updated with the latest developments.

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CNN’s Antoinette Radford, Vasco Cotovio, Laura Paddison, Brandon Miller and Mia Alberti contributed to this report.