RESIDENTS COUNT LOSSES
In the hard-hit rural town of Utiel, some 85km inland, the Magro river burst its banks, sending up to three metres of water into the mostly single-storey homes.
Utiel’s mayor, Ricardo Gabaldon, said at least six people had died in the town of about 12,000, most of them elderly or disabled people who were unable to clamber to safety.
Residents used water pumps carried on tractors as they started to clean up early on Thursday, with children helping to sweep the sidewalks. Ruined household appliances and furniture were piled up in the middle of roads and elderly people struggled to walk in the slippery, mud-coated streets.
Pope Francis said he was praying for the people of the region. “I’m close to them in this moment of catastrophe,” he said in a video posted on X.
As climate change is linked to more frequent bouts of extreme weather, Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at Britain’s University of Reading, said the Valencia floods showed the need for greater public awareness of the dangers.
“We could see that people were putting themselves at risk driving in flood waters and there was just so much water that it has overwhelmed these places,” she said.
