Man loses wife and daughter after severe weather in Spain, eight dead in a garage: “The power of the water was enormous”

“It’s terrible. Normally the view here is great. There was a beautiful bridge and now there is nothing left of it. Nothing,” says Natalia Pérez (21), a pharmacy student from Torrent. Moving testimonies from the affected area are endless. Torrent is located about 15 kilometers from Valencia and has been particularly badly affected by the severe weather of recent days. The Rambla del Poyo river overflowed its banks and destroyed the bridge Pérez is talking about.

A 54-year-old man from Torrent testifies to the Spanish newspaper The Country how he was returning from his job by car on Tuesday evening, when it suddenly started to rain heavily. “We saw the water rising around us. First the fields to the right of the car were flooded. The water rose and rose until it reached the bottom of my car. I felt the car start to move and drift away. I stayed in the car because I thought it was safest there. Until my feet got wet. Then I got out. I didn’t want to drown.” Eventually the man was able to climb into the cab of a truck.

Six dead in residential care center

One of the most compelling stories comes from a residential care center in Paiporta, the Valencia suburb where at least 40 people died. According to Mayor Maribel Albalat, the village was flooded within ten minutes. Six people were killed in a nursing home on the outskirts of the city.

According to Spanish media, residents and employees were surprised by the flooding during dinner. The cook at the retirement home filmed from a table and shared the images on social media. Men and women in wheelchairs can be seen after the water rose in the dining room. Staff managed to evacuate most of the 120 residents to the upper floors, but six people could not be rescued in time.

Flooded garage

Eight fatalities were found in a garage in the La Torre district. A local police officer would also be present. According to the Spanish newspaper The World some local residents wanted to get their cars out of the garage. But in just a few minutes the garage filled with water.

“The water flowed through the street with great force and the level rose very quickly. Suddenly the garage door gave way and water poured in. It was no longer possible to get out of the cars,” said a police officer The World.

Other people were dragged from the street into the garage by the force of the water. The bodies could not yet be identified. But Javier (35) tells us The Country that he is almost certain that he lost his aunt Maria (61) in the garage. “Suddenly she was grabbed by the water.”

In addition to these eight victims, the mayor of Valencia, María José Català, announced that a ninth victim fell in La Torre. It concerns a woman who drowned in her home.

Lourdes a baby

Antonio Tarazona, 59, and Lourdes María García, 34, left Paiporta for Valencia with their three-month-old baby in their car to escape the floods. But things went wrong. “The car suddenly started to drift,” Tarazona said on Tuesday The Country. Around 8:30 p.m. they came to a standstill due to the rising water. “I was able to climb out through the window and anchor the car to a post. But the power of the water was enormous.”

The current still carried the car away. “The last thing I saw was both of them sitting on the roof of the car, shouting for help,” said Tarazona, who was also swept away by the water. “I couldn’t do anything.”

According to The World the woman called a friend at 8:50 p.m. “She told me she would try to hold out as long as she could, and she asked me to look after her two other children, aged 13 and 10.” On Wednesday evening at 10 p.m., the man received confirmation that the bodies of his wife and their daughter had been found in the car.

Utiel

In Utiel, which is located about 80 kilometers west of Valencia, the river Magro overflowed its banks. The mayor, Ricardo Gabaldón, confirmed the deaths of at least six residents on Wednesday. Most were, according to a municipal spokeswoman, between 80 and 90 years old.

Someone tells The Country how he lost his mother. “We saw the river overflowing its banks. I called my mother to come to my higher house, but she said no. My parents played it down. They had seen a lot of storms, but we were in a mousetrap and everything was happening too fast.” Because the 83-year-old mother had just undergone hip surgery and was not mobile. According to relatives, she died of hypothermia after hours in the water. “We are devastated.”