CHIVA, Spain. — Three days after historic flash floods swept through towns in Spain and killed at least 205 people, the initial shock was giving way to anger, frustration and a wave of solidarity on Friday.
Spanish emergency authorities raised the death toll to at least 205 victims, 202 of them in Valencia alone.
Many streets are still blocked by piled-up vehicles and debris, in some cases trapping residents in their homes. Some places still don’t have electricity, running water, or stable telephone connections.
The damage from the storm Tuesday and Wednesday recalled the aftermath of a tsunami, with survivors left to pick up the pieces as they mourn loved ones lost in Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory.
“The situation is unbelievable. It’s a disaster and there is very little help,” said Emilio Cuartero, a resident of Masanasa, on the outskirts of Valencia. “We need machinery, cranes, so that the sites can be accessed. We need a lot of help. And bread and water.”
In Chiva, residents were busy Friday clearing debris from mud-filled streets. The Valencian town received more rain in eight hours on Tuesday than it had in the preceding 20 months, and water overflowed a gully that crosses the town, tearing up roads and walls of houses.
The mayor, Amparo Fort, told RNE radio that “entire houses have disappeared, we don’t know if there were people inside or not.”
So far 158 bodies have been recovered — 155 in Valencia, two in the Castilla La Mancha region and one more in Andalusia — after Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory. Members of the security forces and soldiers are busy searching for an unknown number of missing people, many feared to still be trapped in wrecked vehicles or flooded garages.
“I have been there all my life, all my memories are there, my parents lived there … and now in one night it is all gone,” Chiva resident Juan Vicente Pérez told The Associated Press near the place he lost his home. “If…
