The province of Valencia woke up this Wednesday after a nightmare night awaiting to know the definitive magnitude of the devastation caused by the storm that struck on Tuesday, a storm with explosive effects that is already counted among the worst natural disasters recorded in modern history in Spain. There are at least 95 dead (among them, at least four children), dozens missing, drivers who spent hours isolated, neighbors perched on the upper floors of their homes, thousands of people who could not return home last night, cars stacked, towns flooded, and railways and roads cut. At the end of the day on Wednesday, 115,000 people were still without electricity and just under 120,000 were still without telecommunications connection. The Government has activated a crisis cabinet in La Moncloa and has declared three days of official mourning.
The effects of the storm have mainly affected the province of Valencia but have also reached other areas: a woman of 88 years died in Mira (Cuenca) after a river overflow, and in Letur (Albacete) the lifeless body of another woman was found and five missing persons are being sought. A 71-year-old British man who had been rescued in Alhaurín de la Torre (Málaga) also died of a heart attack while being transported to the hospital. High-speed rail traffic between Madrid and Valencia is cut off, as well as train traffic between Valencia and Barcelona, and will remain so, at least, throughout today (in the case of the AVE, until Monday at the minimum). As of 10 p.m. on Wednesday, the Civil Guard confirmed the identities of two bodies found in Paiporta, those of Lourdes María García, 34, and her three-month-old baby.
This Thursday, the storm will continue to lose intensity, although it still maintains a yellow warning, the minimum on a scale of three, for five communities and Ceuta. These are Andalusia, Castilla y León, Catalonia, Extremadura, and again Valencia Community, the epicenter of the disaster. Abundant rainfall is expected, although no longer torrential, which will complicate the search for people and the reconstruction of infrastructure. The storm will continue located west of the Peninsula, so the highest probability of precipitation is concentrated on the southern Atlantic slope and the Strait area. Both on Thursday and Friday, there will be storms again in southern Catalonia, locally intense, and again abundant rains in Extremadura and western Andalusia, but nothing compared to what was seen on Tuesday in the Mediterranean area.
The President of the Valencian Government Carlos Mazón confirmed on Tuesday night the recovery of several “bodies without life”, but avoided giving a number until contacting the relatives. By early Wednesday morning, there were already 13 confirmed deaths: five in Torrent (a couple, two children, and a baby), four in Paiporta (two men, one woman, and a baby), one in Chiva (a man), one in Cheste (another man), one in Alfafar (a woman), and one in Alcudia (another man). Around 9 a.m. the number had risen to 51, and by midday, the Valencian authorities had raised it to 62. Sources from the central government confirmed, minutes before 3 p.m., that the death toll in Valencia province was already 70. Half of the deceased were residents of Paiporta, a municipality of 27,000 inhabitants. By mid-afternoon, the figure rose to 92 and later to 95, but it is a provisional count as the search for countless missing persons continues.
The bodies are being transferred to the Valencia City of Justice, where the Institute of Legal Medicine is located, as confirmed by the Valencian Government. The Ministry of Defense has offered portable morgues out of fear that, once the mud that floods many Valencian towns begins to be removed, more bodies may be found. There are 1,116 military personnel mobilized in the area to participate in rescue operations, as explained by the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Victor. The rains have been receding in the province of Valencia throughout the day, giving way to a damage assessment in the most affected regions: Utiel-Requena, la Hoya de Buñol l’Horta de Valencia, and La Ribera. The Generalitat has provided a telephone number specifically for information on missing persons: 900 365 112.
