“When the water began to rise, it got here as a wave,” mentioned Guillermo Serrano Pérez. “It was like a tsunami.”
The 21-year previous from Paiporta, close to Valencia, is likely one of the 1000’s of people that skilled Tuesday night time’s flash floods which engulfed the area and killed greater than 70 folks.
He was driving on the motorway along with his dad and mom on Tuesday night when the water rushed in. They survived by climbing on a bridge and abandoning their automobile to the fury of the floodwater.
Though heavy rain had been battering the world for hours, many, like Guillermo Serrano Pérez and his household, had been caught unawares by the drive of the floods.
But the indicators had been there.
On Tuesday morning at about 07:00 (06:00 GMT), Spain’s meteorological company Aemet warned that torrential rains had been forecast for the area of Valencia.
“Be very cautious! The hazard is excessive! Don’t journey until completely crucial,” it mentioned on X, earlier than issuing a “most crimson alert”.
All through the day, extra alerts had been put out, warning native authorities to stop folks from approaching the river banks.
By 15:20, the regional emergencies co-ordination centre was already publishing pictures of closely flooded streets within the La Fuente and Utiel municipalities, west of Valencia.
A couple of hours later, it mentioned a number of rivers within the space had been swelling up and urged folks to maneuver away from the banks.
However in most locations, it was already too late.
Chiva – about 20km away – was among the many first to expertise the complete fury of the flash floods.
The deep ravine which traverses the city had reportedly been filling with water since Tuesday afternoon following heavy rains.
By 18:00 the city’s streets had was raging rivers, with the drive of the water dragging away automobiles, avenue lamps and benches.
Emergency providers scrambled to deliver help throughout the area, however the pace at which the water stuffed the streets was unprecedented.
“A really sturdy downpour got here from above very abruptly… and the water rose a metre or a metre and a half in a couple of minutes,” mentioned the mayor of the city of Riba-roja de Túria.
Elsewhere within the area, information that individuals had been lacking after being swept away by floodwaters started to emerge.
But the civil safety didn’t ship a warning to residents of the Valencia area to warn them to not journey on the roads till greater than two hours later, after 20:00.
Many have questioned the timing of that warning, which arrived greater than 12 hours after the Spanish meteorological company had issued its first crimson alert.
Some say that it arrived too late for folks to hunt refuge on the upper flooring or to get off the roads, which had been busy with commuters returning dwelling after work.
Paco had been driving from Valencia to close by Picassent when he was caught unexpectedly by the flash floods that swallowed up the roads.
He informed El Mundo newspaper “the pace of the water was insane” because it dragged automobiles away: “The strain was great. I managed to get out of the automobile and the water pushed me towards a fence that I managed to seize on to, however I could not transfer.”
“It would not let me. It ripped my garments off,” he mentioned.
Patricia Rodríguez, from Sedaví, was additionally caught by the flooding as she drove dwelling from work.
She informed native media that water began to rise as she sat in a line of visitors close to Paiporta and the automobiles began floating.
“We had been afraid the river was going to burst its banks as a result of we had been proper within the line of fireside,” she mentioned. She managed to flee on foot with the assistance of one other driver and watched, terrified, as a younger man close by carried a new-born child to security.
“It was simply as properly that no person slipped, as a result of if we had, the present would have taken us away,” she mentioned.
Social media posts assist to color an image of the chaos that engulfed the area as night time fell.
In a single video shared on X, wheelchair-bound residents of a care dwelling in Paiporta could possibly be seen trapped in a eating room with brown floodwater coming as much as their knees.
Rut Moyano, a resident of Benetússer, close to Valencia, chronicled the more and more determined scenario in her city on X. Pleading for assist, she mentioned she was sheltering with neighbours on the higher flooring of her constructing when one in every of them suffered a coronary heart assault and died.
“The Civil Guard has arrived on foot however they can not entry the property as a result of there’s a automobile caught within the entrance,” she wrote within the early hours of Wednesday morning. “Can anybody inform me if another person might help?”
The morning introduced its personal set of challenges. Daylight revealed the complete extent of the devastation, with dozens of automobiles piled up on prime of each other, destroyed companies and whole cities coated in mud and particles.
In Valencia, a person known as Juliano Sánchez was rescued with signs of hypothermia after clinging on to palm timber for seven hours.
“I did not wish to die,” he informed El Periódico. “I grabbed onto some palm timber and held on with all my power so the river would not sweep me away.”
However many had been much less lucky.
Dozens of persons are nonetheless lacking throughout the area, whereas those that survived have described being helpless within the face of horrific destruction.
“We noticed two automobiles being swept away by the present and we do not know if there have been folks inside,” a person informed Las Provincias. “We might by no means seen something prefer it.”