Spain floods latest: British man, 71, among dead in floods as death toll nears 100

• At least 95 people have been killed after torrential rain led to flash floods in villages, towns and cities across eastern and southern Spain. Of those, 92 died in the Valencia region, while two were killed in the Castilla La Mancha provence and one died elsewhere.
• More than 1,000 soldiers from Spain’s emergency response unit have been deployed to the most devastated areas to help search for missing people, and to clear up the damage caused by the floods.
• Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has warned the danger is not over despite rain having subsided in Valencia by late Wednesday morning, with the storm heading north. “For those who are looking for their loved ones, all of Spain feels your pain,” he said in a televised message.
• The project to rebuild towns and cities following the damage will be huge, said Mr Sanchez, who also hinted he could call on the help of European Union states. Germany, Portugal, and the EU have already offered their support.
• Spain’s state weather agency, AEMET, has issued alerts for regions in the south west and north east of the country, with heavy showers forecast.

A leading scientist has warned similar flooding will happen again and that people need to understand the risks.

“We’re going to see more of these flash floods in the future. This has the fingerprints of climate change on it, these terribly heavy rainfalls, and these devastating floods,” said Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading.

She said even early warnings of heavy rain based on reliable forecasts did little to prevent the fatalities and people needed to understand the real danger.

“Just telling people that it’s going to rain quite a lot, it’s not good enough…We could see that people were putting themselves at risk driving in floodwaters, and there was just so much water that it has overwhelmed these places.”

Experts say it will take time to analyse all the data to determine if this particular Dana was caused by climate change, but most agree that an increase in temperature of the Mediterranean and warmer and more humid atmospheric conditions contribute to producing more frequent extreme episodes.

One of Spain’s largest farmers’ groups said it expected significant damage to crops.

Spain is the world’s largest exporter of fresh and dried oranges, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, and Valencia accounts for about 60 per cent of the country’s citrus production, according to Valencian Institute of Agriculture Investigations.

Scientists say extreme weather events are becoming more frequent in Europe due to climate change. Meteorologists think the warming of the Mediterranean, which increases water evaporation, plays a key role in making torrential rains more severe.

Dogs and horses also died, as well as at least 95 people, a resident of Alora in the south said.

Power company i-DE said about 150,000 customers in Valencia had no electricity.

Emergency services in the region urged citizens to avoid all road travel and to follow further official advice, and a military unit specialised in rescue operations was deployed in some places to help local emergency workers.

“(The floodwaters) took away lots of dogs, lots of horses, they took away everything,” said Antonio Carmona, a construction worker.

Residents in the worst-hit places described seeing people clambering onto the roofs of their cars as a churning tide of brown water gushed through the streets, uprooting trees and dragging away chunks of masonry from buildings.

“It’s a river that came through,” said Denis Hlavaty, who waited for rescue on a ledge in the petrol station where he works in the regional capital.

“The doors were torn away and I spent the night there, surrounded by water that was 2 metres (6.5ft) deep.”

Footage shot by emergency services from a helicopter showed bridges that had collapsed and cars and trucks piled on top of each other on highways between flooded fields outside the city of Valencia, on Spain’s east coast.

Spain’s government said it would declare three days of mourning starting tomorrow for those killed.

The death toll appears to be the worst in Europe from flooding since 2021 when at least 185 people died in Germany.

It is the deadliest flood-related disaster in Spain since 1996, when 87 people died near a town in the Pyrenees mountains.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said Europe was ready to help. “What we’re seeing in Spain is devastating,” she said on social media.

The death toll from flash floods in Valencia and eastern Spain has reached at least 95, Spanish officials said.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said dozens of towns had been flooded.

“For those who are looking for their loved ones, all of Spain feels your pain,” Mr Sanchez said in a televised address. “Our priority is to help you. We are putting all the resources necessary so that we can recover from this tragedy.”

A 71-year-old British man has been confirmed as one of the casualties of the flash floods.

President of the Andalusian government, Juanma Morena, said the man had died in hospital hours after being rescued from his home on the outskirts of Alhaurín de la Torre, Málaga.

He added that he was suffering from hypothermia and died after suffering several cardiac arrests.

The mayor of a town where six people died and more were unaccounted for says it was the worst day of his life.

Ricardo Gabaldon, mayor of Utiel in Valencia, told national broadcaster RTVE: “We were trapped like rats. Cars and rubbish containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to 3 meters (9.8ft).”

Searchers worked to find survivors and victims, with countless numbers still missing.