Spain declared three days of mourning as heavy rains killed more than 90 people, in what is already one of the country’s worst-ever natural disasters.
The local government of Valencia, the coastal region at the epicenter of the disaster, said more than 92 deaths were recorded as of 7.20 pm Wednesday. Several other deaths have been reported in other regions as the storms, which started on Tuesday, spread across the country.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared the three days of mourning, which will start a midnight Thursday, as a sign of “condolences to the families and people close to those who died and are still missing,” according to a statement from the government.
The storm is “one of the three strongest in the last century in the region of Valencia,” the Spanish weather agency said Wednesday in a post on X. Local media compared it to another storm that hit Valencia in 1957 and killed as many as 100 people when a local river overflowed.
On Wednesday evening, emergency services continued to rescue people as flooding blocked traffic on highways and communications services collapsed, more than 24 hours after the downpours started. Several of the main thoroughways around the city of Valencia were cut.
In one city in the Valencia region, Chiva, almost as much water poured in eight hours as usually does in a year, according to the Spanish weather agency.
“This is an unprecedented situation, nobody has seen anything like this,” Valencia’s regional President Carlos Mazon said.
Valencia has a history of rain disasters. But this week’s death toll makes the current storm the largest natural disaster in Spain’s recent history.
Earlier in the day, Sanchez convened a government crisis committee and, in a speech, said “We will help you with all the state’s resources.” Lawmakers gathered in Parliament in Madrid suspended their session mid-morning to show support for the region.
Ford Motor Co halted production at its Almussafes plant in the region and canceled all shifts because of the storm, according to a company spokesman. Production is due to restart Nov 11.
Valencia is the fourth largest of Spain’s 17 regions, with 5 million people. It’s a large producer of oranges and rice, and one of the country’s main tourist destinations during the summer season.
This kind of storm, known in Spain as a Dana, develops “as a result of cooler air passing over the warm Mediterranean ocean, creating atmospheric instability and bringing with it torrential rain,” said Jess Neumann, associate professor of hydrology at the University of Reading. “These types of storms can develop quickly and with relatively short warning.”
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