The death toll from Spain’s worst floods in decades soared to 158 on Thursday, emergency services and officials said, as rescue services worked frantically to find survivors.
The body coordinating rescue work in the eastern Valencia region announced that 155 bodies had been recovered there.
Officials in Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia announced a combined three deaths in their regions.
AFP reports that an exceptionally powerful Mediterranean storm from Tuesday unleashed heavy rains and torrents of mud-filled water that swept away people and wrecked homes, with the eastern Valencia region hit hardest.
With many people still missing and some areas remaining inaccessible to rescuers, government ministers had warned Wednesday’s provisional toll of 95 was likely to rise.
“Please, stay at home and follow the calls of the emergency services,” pleaded Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
“Right now the most important thing is to save as many lives as possible,” Sanchez told residents of the eastern Valencia and Castellon provinces.
King Felipe VI warned the emergency was “still not over” and national weather service AEMET put parts of eastern and southern regions on high alert levels for rain on Thursday.
Flags flew at half-mast on government buildings and minutes of silence were observed nationwide at the start of three days of national mourning after Spain’s deadliest floods in decades.
A resident of a suburb of Valencia city, Eliu Sanchez, recalled how the merciless currents snatched a man who tried to take refuge in a car.
“I have been told of people who were clinging to trees, but the force made them let go and they were carried away, calling for help. Trucks, everything was going from here to there,” said Sanchez, 32.
Emergency services backed by drones and more than 1,200 troops combed mud-caked towns and villages to find survivors and clear roads of debris.
Abandoned vehicles lay piled on top of each other like dominoes and some residents grabbed planks of wood to plough through layers of thick, sticky mud, AFP journalists reported in the Valencia region.
In Paiporta, a suburb of Valencia city at the epicentre of the damage, 27-year-old musician David Romero lamented a “catastrophe”.
