Flood disaster in Spain: Cleaning up after the nightmare

There's devastation as far as the eye can see. One week after the flood disaster in eastern Spain, residents and rescue workers are trying to make roads in the Valencia region usable again. Around 17,000 police, firefighters, and military personnel are still searching for missing people. At least 218 people died in the disaster and the death toll is still rising.

It looks like a scene from a horror movie: In a dark underground car park full of water, Spanish civil protection officers check a car on Monday. The search for those still missing currently focuses on underground parking lots which can quickly become death traps during floods. Divers are also being deployed.

The search is also continuing above ground. Here, a sniffer dog is searching for people trapped under the rubble. There is no official figure on how many people are still missing. According to Transport Minister Oscar Puente, there are still many flooded first floors, basements, and underground garages that rescue workers have not been able to search yet.

Volunteers carry buckets of mud on Sunday in the town of Paiporta, which was hit particularly hard by the floods. In addition to the risk of collapse in many places, there is growing concern about pathogens or toxins emanating from the brown sludge. Many helpers are therefore wearing protective masks.

An angry resident speaks to King Felipe during his visit to the devastated region on Sunday. "Murderers!" and "Get lost, get lost,!" some people shouted at the royal couple, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and Regional President Carlos Mazon; mud and various objects were also thrown in the direction of the visitors. Many of those affected feel abandoned by the government and authorities.

A relieved resident in the disaster area hugs a soldier. Many Spaniards are wondering why it took so long for soldiers to help the regional rescue services. There is also criticism that the regional government of Valencia only activated the alarm on all cell phones in the region 12 hours after the storms began.

Police officers push mud off a road in Alfafar, a town near Valencia. On Tuesday last week, some villages in the region, which is popular with tourists, received as much rain in just a few hours as they usually do in a year. The clean-up work will take weeks while reconstruction is likely to take months.

Thousands of volunteers are helping to clean up alongside rescue workers. Some of their work has paid off. The power grid has been almost completely restored; roads and railroad lines are gradually being repaired and the telephone network is 60% intact again, said Angel Victor Torres, the minister for Territorial Policy, on Monday.

Destroyed cars piled up on a road outside Valencia last week. Autumn storms are nothing unusual in parts of Spain, but researchers agree that climate change is exacerbating regular weather patterns. "This is the dramatic reality of climate change and we must prepare for it," warned European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.