Brutal storms which caused deadly flooding across eastern Spain last week have now dumped torrential rain on Barcelona, with the city’s airport submerged and locals warned of ‘extreme danger’ as the country’s severe weather crisis continues.
Spain’s weather service has issued a red alert for ‘continuous and torrential rains’ along the Barcelona coast, telling people to stay alert and not travel ‘unless strictly necessary’.
Mobile phones screeched with an alert for ‘extreme and continued rainfall’ on the southern outskirts of the Catalonian capital, urging people to avoid any normally dry gorges or canals where they could fall victim to rising waters.
Roads across the region have been blocked by mudslides and high water, with motorists filmed driving through submerged streets as they desperately try to get home to safety.
At Barcelona’s El Prat airport, shocking videos have shown water streaming into the terminal building and pouring from the ceilings, with travellers seen taking their shoes off and wading through the departures hall.
Video shows an Iberia airlines plane ploughing through the high water on the airport’s flooded runway, with the treacherous conditions forcing air traffic control to divert and cancel dozens of flights.
Train services across the region have also been stopped and classes at universities and schools cancelled as authorities desperately try to limit resident’s movements to avoid a repeat of last week’s disaster, in which more than 200 people died.
A man is seen taking his shoes off and wading through the departures hall at El Prat airport
Abandoned cars are seen on a motorway in Catalonia today as heavy rain deluged the Barcelona coastline
A lorry is seen submerged in high floodwater under a bridge near Barcelona
Water covered the walkways outside the airport terminal building as a deluge of rain hit this morning
Water is seen pouring from the ceiling of the El Prat airport, where flights have been diverted amid the deluge
An Iberia airlines plane ploughs through floodwaters at El Prat airport this morning
Floodwaters are seen on the runway at El Prat airport in Barcelona, with flights being diverted
An emergency worker is seen wading through the floodwaters in Catalonia this morning
Catalonia’s A-27 highway was covered in mud after a landslide, triggered by the heavy rains
Spain’s King Felipe has been heckled and had mud thrown at him by furious local during his visit to Valencia, where more than 200 people died in devastating floods
Spain’s Queen Letizia consoles a woman during her visit to Paiporta, eastern Spain, November 3 2024
Meanwhile, in Valencia, the grim search is continuing for bodies inside houses and thousands of wrecked cars strewn in the streets, on highways, and in canals that channeled last week’s deluge into populated areas.
Citizens, volunteers and thousands of soldiers and police officers are helping in the gargantuan clean-up effort of mud and debris.
Survivors who have lost everything in the disaster have expressed their anger at authorities, who they say failed to warn them in time and were slow in their response.
That fury was directed at Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia yesterday as they visited Paiporta, one of the hardest-hit towns in Valencia.
The tension was palpable as the royals stepped out of their vehicles to walk through the streets flanked by bodyguards, with protesters slinging mud and objects towards the royals.
The crowd shouted ‘murderers’ and other insults at the royals and government officials, including Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who had to be evacuated and had his car windows smashed by furious protesters.
The number of dead in the catastrophe currently stands at 217, with more bodies expected to be found as the gargantuan search operation continues.
British couple Terry and Don Turner, aged 74 and 78, who had not been seen since torrential rains hit the Valencia region on Tuesday, were confirmed to be among the dead today.
British ex-pat Terry Turner, 74, is among the victims of Tuesday’s floods in Valencia
Don Turner, 78, had moved to Spain with his wife around 10 years ago
Their daughter Ruth O’Loughlin, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, said that her parents’ bodies had been found inside their car on Saturday.
The retired ex-pats were found in a rural area near to where they lived on the outskirts of the small town of Pedralba, a 45-minute drive north-west of the coastal city of Valencia.
Mayor Andoni Leon said on Sunday that volunteer locals had found their bodies and that of a Spanish man themselves as part of a town hall-led attempt to locate the missing – with no outside help anywhere to be seen.
Friends of the couple said Terry had told them that they were ‘popping out’ to get some gas on Tuesday, their daughter said last week as she expressed fears over her parents’ fate.
They later went to check the pensioners’ bungalow, where they lived with their pet dogs, to see if they had managed to get home before the deadly floods swept in.
A view of mud and debris, following heavy rains that caused floods, at La Torre neighborhood in Valencia
A police officer checking inside piled up vehicles for victims in the aftermath of the flooding on Saturday
Satellite image shows severe flooding in Valencia on October 30 after heavy rains
‘Friends had nipped up there because they hadn’t heard from mum and dad, the key was in the door, they could get into the property, the dogs were there and the car’s gone so they know that mum and dad haven’t gone back,’ she said last week.
Ms O’Loughlin previously told the BBC that her parents had moved to Spain around 10 years ago as they had ‘always wanted to live in the sunshine’.
They were popular in their community and had ‘lovely friends around them’, but had been considering moving back to the UK as they got older.
Ms O’Loughlin said she last spoke to her mother on Monday, the day before the floods hit, and said she had been ‘moaning about the rain’.
‘She was saying they wanted to do jobs to the house so they could put it up for sale but it’s raining a lot.
‘We talked about mum and dad coming over here next year to spend some time with us and we just ended the call and I’m really glad I said ‘I love you’ and she said she loves me too.’
As news emerged of the horrifying floods the next day, Ms O’Loughlin said he desperately tried to reach her mother and father but did not hear from them again.
Rescuers continue to search for survivors with fears underwater car parks will be ‘mass graves’
Cars piled up in a ditch at a construction site after being swept off the road by powerful floods
Their deaths bring the number of Brits confirmed dead in the tragedy to three, with a 71-year-old man losing his life after being rescued from the floods in Malaga.
The British man was rescued by boat last Tuesday by firefighters after his partner alerted the authorities because he was having an apparent heart attack and suffering from hypothermia.
He was taken to nearby Guadalhorce Hospital and stabilised before being transferred to a hospital in Malaga where he died in the early hours of Wednesday morning after suffering multiple organ failure.
The disaster amounts to the deadliest natural tragedy in living memory in Spain and the second deadliest flood in Europe this century, authorities have said.
Almost all the deaths have been in the Valencia region, where thousands of security and emergency services frantically cleared debris and mud in the search for bodies.
Rescuers have discovered hundreds of cars left abandoned in the flooded car park of Bonaire shopping centre (pictured: Flood water at the entrance to the underground car park)
Rescuers are continuing their grim search of cars and underground garages, where it is feared that dozens more bodies could yet be found.
Rescuers are holding their breath as the underground car park of Valencia’s biggest shopping centre continues to be drained and searched for bodies.
Apocalyptic images have circulated of water pouring into the Bonaire shopping and its parking lot last week, with the entire multi-storey car park filled with water.
Emergency teams have been using boats, robots and the divers to help them as they pump out the floodwater from the car park – which has two floors.
But rescuers have now downplayed fears that dozens could have died trapped in their cars, with one firefighter telling El Pais: ‘Yesterday we went through the entire car park and luckily we haven’t found any bodies.’
They said that the situation could change as the car park continues to be emptied of water and vehicles are combed through, but that the cars they have so far assessed are all empty.
