Valencia Floods: High Death Toll Linked to Trapped Vehicles and Garages

As Spain grapples with the aftermath of flash floods that hit the country’s south-east this week, many are questioning the exceptionally high death toll, which currently exceeds 200. Nearly all confirmed fatalities have occurred in the Valencia region, located on the Mediterranean coast. Some areas have been particularly devastated; for instance, the town of Paiporta, with a population of 25,000, reported at least 62 deaths. Various elements are believed to have contributed, including drivers becoming trapped in their cars, inadequate planning by officials, and extreme rainfall intensified by climate change. The civil protection agency, operating under the regional government, issued an emergency alert to mobile phones of individuals in and around the city of Valencia after 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday. By this time, floodwaters were rapidly rising in many areas and, in some cases, already causing significant destruction. A large number of those who died were on the roads, frequently returning from work, when the sudden floods struck. Video footage illustrates an initial wave of floodwater sweeping through Paiporta while vehicles were still in circulation. Although precipitation was heavier in other areas, such as Utiel and Chiva, Paiporta’s geography, featuring a ravine running through its center, made the flood’s impact particularly devastating. Mayor Maribel Albalat stated that the town was ill-prepared in terms of planning, noting the presence of many ground-floor flats. Six residents of an elderly care home died when floodwaters entered the building while they were still on the ground floor. She also suggested an element of complacency. “In Paiporta we don’t tend to have floods and people aren’t afraid,” she said. Garages presented a specific danger. “When it rains people normally go down to their garages to get their cars out in case their garage is flooded,” Ms Albalat said. This scenario appears to have unfolded in the neighborhood of La Torre, on the outskirts of Valencia, where the bodies of seven individuals were recovered from the garage of a residential building. The A3 motorway, connecting Valencia to Madrid, was among numerous roads where motorists became stranded as water levels rose, leaving them uncertain whether it was safer to remain in their vehicles or not. “There are almost certainly more people who have died because the water washed people away who had got out of their cars,” one survivor told the Telecinco TV channel. Another survivor reported that the water had reached his chest. An eyewitness described observing a driver who had exited his car and secured himself to a lamppost with his belt, to prevent being swept away. It remains unknown whether he survived. The mayor of Chiva, Amparo Fort, warned on Thursday that in the vicinity there were still “hundreds of cars turned upside down and they will surely have people inside them.” On Thursday morning, the Guardia Civil shared advice on social media regarding how to escape from a car during a flood. People caught in floods are advised to attempt escaping through their cars’ windows and windscreen. Other factors also seem to contribute to explaining why Valencia was so severely affected by the weather event. Much of the most heavily impacted area, within and surrounding the country’s third-largest city, is densely populated. A scarcity of rainfall throughout the rest of the year has rendered the ground in many parts of eastern and southern Spain unable to absorb rainwater efficiently. Pablo Aznar, a researcher at the Socio-Economic Observatory of Floods and Droughts (Obsis), cautioned that a significant portion of the affected area had undergone what he described as “untrammelled development,” with many surfaces covered in impermeable materials, which “increases the danger posed by these events.” The warming climate is also likely to have contributed to the floods’ severity. In a preliminary report, World Weather Attribution (WWA), a group of international scientists who investigate global warming’s role in extreme weather, found that the rainfall which struck Spain was 12% heavier due to climate change and that the weather event experienced was twice as likely.