The Spaniards recounted the horrors of the deadly floods

“When the water starts to rise, it comes like waves,” said Guillermo Serrano Pérez. “It was like a tsunami.”

The 21-year-old from Paiporta, near Valencia, was one of the thousands of people affected by the floods on Tuesday night. it engulfed the region and killed more than 70 people.

He was driving on the road with his parents on Tuesday evening when the water started pouring down. They survived by climbing onto the bridge and abandoned their car due to the raging flood waters.

Although the heavy rain had battered the area for hours, many, like Guillermo Serrano Pérez and his family, were caught unawares by the power of the flood.

Yet the signs were there.

On Tuesday morning at around 07:00 (06:00 GMT), the Spanish meteorological company Aemet warned that heavy rains were forecast for the region of Valencia.

“Be very careful! The danger is very dangerous! Do not go unless necessary,” said X, before issuing a “high red alert”.

Throughout the day, more warnings were issued, warning local authorities to prevent people from approaching the river’s banks.

At 15:20, the regional emergency coordination center was publishing images of flooded roads in the municipalities of La Fuente and Utiel, west of Valencia.

After a few hours, he said many rivers in the area were overflowing and urged people to stay away from the banks.

But in many places, it was too late.

Chiva – some 20 kilometers away – was among the first to feel the full fury of the floods.

The deep ravine that cuts through the city was reportedly full of water since Tuesday afternoon following heavy rains.

At 18:00 the streets of the city had turned into raging rivers, water dragging cars, street lights and benches.

Emergency services tried to bring help to the entire region, but the speed with which the water filled the roads was unprecedented.

“Very heavy rain suddenly came from above… and the water rose a meter or a meter and a half in a few minutes,” said the mayor of the town of Riba-roja de Túria.

In some places in the region, news has started to appear that people are missing after being swept away by the floods.

However, the public defense did not send an alert to the residents of the Valencia region to warn them not to walk on the streets until more than two hours later, after 20:00.

Many have questioned the timing of the warning, which came more than 12 hours after Spain’s meteorological agency issued its first red warning.

Others said that it was too late for people to take refuge on higher floors or go down the streets that are crowded with commuters returning home after work.

Paco was driving from Valencia to nearby Picassent when he was caught in flash floods that swallowed the roads.

He told El Mundo newspaper that “the speed of the water was crazy” as it dragged the cars: “The pressure was very heavy. I managed to get out of the car and the water pushed me against the fence and I couldn’t hold it. But I couldn’t move.”

“He doesn’t agree. He tore my clothes,” he said.

Patricia Rodríguez, from Sedaví, was also caught in the flood on her way home from work.

He told the local media that the water started to rise as he sat in the traffic lane near Paiporta and the cars started to float.

“We were afraid that the river would burst its banks because we were in the line of fire,” he said. She managed to escape on foot with the help of another driver and watched, horrified, as a young man nearby carried the baby to safety.

“It was good that no one slipped, because if we had, the electricity would have taken us away,” he said.

Social media posts help paint a picture of the chaos that gripped the region as night fell.

In one video shared on X, wheelchair-bound residents of a care home in Paiporta can be seen trapped in a dining room with knee-deep brown floodwater.

Rut Moyano, a resident of Benetússer, near Valencia, tells of the growing bad situation in her hometown in X. Asking for help, he said he had taken shelter from neighbors on the top floor of his building when one of them suffered a heart attack and died. .

“The Civil Guard arrived on foot but they cannot reach the place because there is a car stuck at the door,” he wrote in the early hours of Wednesday. “Can anyone tell me if anyone else can help?”

The morning brought its own challenges. Daylight showed all the damage, as dozens of cars piled on top of each other, destroying businesses and entire towns covered in mud and debris.

In Valencia, a man named Juliano Sánchez was rescued with symptoms of hypothermia after clinging to palm trees for seven hours.

“I didn’t want to die,” he told El Periódico. “I grabbed the palms and held on with all my strength so that the river wouldn’t wash me away.”

But many were less fortunate.

Dozens of people are still missing across the region, and survivors have explained that they are helpless in the face of the horrific devastation.

“We saw two cars washed away by the current, we don’t know if there were people inside,” a man told Las Provincias. “We’ve never seen anything like this.”