An enormous search operation is underway in Valencia’s biggest shopping centre after an underground car park was left submerged in the deadly floods – leaving what many fear is now a ‘mass grave’ with bodies being counted ‘by the hundreds’.
Close to 10,000 troops and police have been drafted into the region to help in the search after the nation was hit with its worst natural disaster in decades, with the death toll rising over 200 and 2,000 people still missing.
Among those called in is a team of specialist scuba divers, who have been deployed in the flooded car park of the Bonaire shopping centre, after hundreds of abandoned cars were discovered by rescuers.
Emergency teams have been using boats, robots and the divers to help them as they pump out the sewage from the car park – which has two floors – and search the filthy and dark water for any potential survivors.
One rescue worker accused the Government of downplaying the number of people killed in the floods, after Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia were pelted with mud and objects as they attempted to visit the muddy streets of one of the hardest-hit towns on the outskirts of Valencia on Sunday.
It comes as news tonight emerged of floods spreading to other holiday hotspots on the Spanish coast, as new images and videos showed streets in Alicante flooded with dirty rainwater that has fallen in recent days.
Images of devastation have been seen across eastern Spain since the floods hit earlier this week, as anguished locals have been left feeling the Spanish authorities’ response to the disaster was too slow.
But the efforts seen at the shopping centre are said to be more focused, as many feel what the search teams will discover when the water is cleared will be incredibly chilling.
Rescue worker Cristina Vana, a judicial expert with the Recovery Operation Team, told Sky News: ‘It’s not even true. We’re in the point where we are counting (the bodies) in the hundreds.’
She added: ‘My mum’s been helping the army, she’s a doctor, and she was helping counting bodies… in six hours, they got 80 people.’
Earlier today, the Spanish royals and government officials like Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had mud and objects like drink cans thrown at them when they visited the muddy streets in Paiporta, one of the hardest-hit areas by the floods.
The crowd shouted ‘murderers’ and other insults as the king and queen made several efforts to speak to individual residents, while local officials – who the angry crowd had reportedly directed their wrath at – fled.
The king and queen spent an hour trying to calm tempers before leaving themselves, while Sanchez and the head of the Valencia region, Carlos Mazon, quickly left, not before the rear window of the premier’s vehicle was broken.
The extraordinary scenes underscored the depth of the anger in the country over the response to the disaster.
Almost all the deaths have been in the Valencia region, where thousands of security and emergency services frantically cleared debris and mud in the search for bodies.
Describing ‘the worst natural disaster in the recent history of our country,’ Sanchez said it was the second deadliest flood in Europe this century.
This announcement came as new images and videos emerged from the tourist hotspot of Alicante, popular with British holidaymakers, which showed streets flooded with dirty rainwater that has fallen in recent days.
One video showed a man forced to swim away from his car after it was swept away underneath a bridge in Altea, which lies in the province. He could be seen swimming in his clothes towards a tree.
Another video showed water flowing rapidly down a set of stairs in the town of Altea, getting faster and faster as it gets to the bottom.
Alicante Airport is still sending and receiving passenger planes, though it has delayed dozens of flights, many of them coming from the UK.
Indignation at the management of Spain’s worst natural disaster in living memory started after the initial shock wore off.
The floods had already started filling Paiporta with crushing waves when regional officials issued an alert to mobile phones that sounded two hours too late.
And more anger has been fuelled by the inability of officials to respond quickly in the aftermath.
Most of the clean-up of the layers and layers of mud and debris that has invaded countless homes has been carried out by residents and thousands of volunteers.
According to a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE, one woman wept and told the king she did not have food and nappies, while another person said: ‘Don’t abandon us.’
After more than half an hour of tension, the monarch and the rest of the delegation got into official cars and left with a mounted police escort.
Sanchez later said while he empathised with the ‘anguish and suffering’ of the victims, he condemned ‘all forms of violence’.
The government had accepted the Valencia region leader’s request for 5,000 more troops and informed Sanchez of a further deployment of 5,000 police and civil guards, the premier said.
Spain was carrying out its largest deployment of military and security force personnel in peacetime, he added.
Restoring order and distributing aid to destroyed towns and villages – some of which have been cut off from food, water and power since Tuesday’s torrent – is a priority.
Authorities have come under fire over the warning systems before the floods, and some stricken residents have complained the response to the disaster is too slow.
‘I am aware the response is not enough, there are problems and severe shortages… towns buried by mud, desperate people searching for their relatives… we have to improve,’ Sanchez said.
‘I am aware the response is not enough, there are problems and severe shortages… towns buried by mud, desperate people searching for their relatives… we have to improve,’ Sanchez said.
In the ground-zero towns of Alfafar and Sedavi, reporters saw no soldiers while residents shovelled mud from their homes and firefighters pumped water from garages and tunnels.
‘Thank you to the people who have come to help us, to all of them, because from the authorities, nothing,’ a furious Estrella Caceres, 66, told AFP in Sedavi.
Authorities in the Valencia region have restricted access to roads for two days to allow emergency services to carry out search, rescue and logistics operations more effectively.
With telephone and transport networks severely damaged, establishing a precise figure of missing people is difficult.
Sanchez said electricity had been restored to 94 percent of homes affected by power outages and that around half of the cut telephone lines had been repaired.
Some motorways have reopened but local and regional roads resembled a ‘Swiss cheese’, meaning certain places would probably remain inaccessible by land for weeks, Transport Minister Oscar Puente told El Pais daily.
Ordinary citizens carrying food, water and cleaning equipment continued their grassroots initiative to assist the recovery on Saturday.
Around 1,000 set off from the Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia towards nearby towns laid waste by the floods, an AFP journalist saw.
‘There’s nothing left,’ Mario Silvestre, a resident in the ruined town of Chiva, told AFP on seeing the damage.
‘Politicians promise a lot. Help will come when it comes,’ said the octogenarian.
Authorities have urged people to stay at home to avoid congestion on the roads that would hamper the work of emergency services.
Regional leader Carlos Mazon called the floods ‘the worst moment in our history’ on Saturday and laid out a series of proposals to help his region recover, ranging from infrastructure to economic support.
He is due to visit flood-hit areas along with the royals and Sanchez on Sunday, Spanish news agency EFE reported.
The storm that sparked the floods on Tuesday formed as cold air moved over the warm waters of the Mediterranean and is common for this time of year.
But scientists warn climate change driven by human activity is increasing the ferocity, length and frequency of such extreme weather events.