Spanish residents are calling for help, three days after historic flooding killed at least 158 ​​people

CHIVA, Spain. (AP) – Three days later historic flash floods In several cities in southern Valencia in eastern Spain, the initial shock gave way to anger, frustration and a wave of solidarity on Friday.

Many roads are still blocked Stacked vehicles and debrisIn some cases, residents are trapped in their homes. In some places there is still no electricity, running water or stable telephone connections.

The damage caused by the storm on Tuesday and Wednesday was reminiscent of the aftermath of a tsunami, leaving survivors left to pick up the pieces as they mourned their loved ones killed in Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory. More than 150 people have died.

“The situation is incredible. “It is a disaster and there is very little help,” said Emilio Cuartero, a resident of Masanasa on the outskirts of Valencia. “We need machines and cranes so that the locations can be reached. We need a lot of help. And bread and water.”

In Chiva, residents were busy clearing debris from mud-filled streets on Friday. The Valencian city received more rain in eight hours on Tuesday than in the previous 20 months, and the water poured over a ravine that runs through the city, tearing up streets and the walls of houses.

Mayor Amparo Fort told RNE Radio that “whole houses have disappeared, we don’t know if there were people in them or not.”

So far 158 bodies have been recovered – 155 in Valencia, two in the Castile-La Mancha region and another in Andalusia – after Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory. Members of the security forces and soldiers are working hard seek Given the unknown number of missing people, many feared they were still trapped in wrecked cars or flooded garages.

“I’ve been there my whole life, all my memories are there, my parents lived there… and now in one night it’s all gone,” Juan Vicente Pérez, a resident of Chiva, told The Associated Press near the site, where he lost his home. “If we had waited five more minutes, we wouldn’t be here in this world.”

Before and after satellite images of Valencia highlighted the extent of the disaster, showing the Mediterranean metropolis’s transformation into a landscape inundated by muddy water. The V-33 highway was completely covered with a brown, thick layer of mud.

The tragedy sparked a wave of local solidarity. Residents of communities like Paiporta – where at least 62 people died – and Catarroja have walked miles through sticky mud to Valencia to get supplies, passing neighbors from unaffected areas bringing water, essential products, shovels or brooms, to help remove the mud. The large number of people who came to help has prompted authorities to ask them not to go there as they block roads needed for emergency services.

In addition to the contributions of volunteers, associations such as the Red Cross and city councils distribute food.

And as authorities keep repeating this, more storms are expected. Spain’s weather agency issued warnings of heavy rain in Tarragona, Catalonia, and part of the Balearic Islands.

Meanwhile, flood survivors and volunteers are engaged in the gargantuan task of clearing a pervasive layer of thick mud. The storm knocked out power and water service Tuesday evening, but about 85% of the 155,000 affected customers had power restored by Friday, the utility said in a statement.

“This is a catastrophe. There are many older people who do not have medication. There are children who have no food. We don’t have milk, we don’t have water. We have no access to anything,” a resident of Alfafar, one of the hardest-hit towns in southern Valencia, told state television channel TVE. “The first day no one came to warn us.”

Juan Ramón Adsuara, the mayor of Alfafar, said the aid was far from enough for residents who were in an “extreme situation.”

“There are people who live with corpses at home. It’s very sad. We are organizing but we are running out of everything,” he told reporters. “We go to Valencia in vans, shop and come back, but here we are completely forgotten.”

Rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and rivers emerged, tearing through homes and businesses and making many uninhabitable. Some have looted stores and authorities have arrested 50 people.

Social networks have channeled the needs of those affected. Some posted images of missing people in the hope of obtaining information about their whereabouts, while others launched initiatives such as “Suport Mutu” – or “Mutual Support” – that connects requests for help with people who offer it; and others organized collections of basic goods or launched fundraisers across the country.

Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the most violent flash flood in recent memory. Scientists link it to climate change, which is also responsible for ever-higher temperatures and droughts in Spain and the United States Warming of the Mediterranean.

Human-caused climate change has doubled the chances of a storm like the flooding in Valencia this week, according to a partial analysis released Thursday by World Weather Attribution, a group of dozens of international scientists who study the role of global warming investigate extreme weather conditions.

Spain suffered from a nearly two-year drought that made flooding worse because the dry ground was so hard it could not absorb the rain.

In August 1996, flooding swept away a campsite on the Gallego River in Biescas in the northeast, killing 87 people.

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Medrano reported from Madrid.