Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
More than 90 people have died in southern and eastern Spain as towns were inundated and road and rail links severed in the most devastating flash floods to hit Europe for several years.
Local authorities said torrential rains on Tuesday had led to the deaths of at least 92 people in the Valencia region as well as two in Castile-La Mancha and one in Málaga. Officials warned that the death toll was likely to rise.
“These are very difficult hours for relatives and for the disappeared,” said Carlos Mazón, president of the Valencia government, on Wednesday. “Right now it’s impossible to offer a precise figure [on the number of victims]. We’re in shock.”
In Madrid, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez chaired a crisis meeting on the floods. “We cannot yet say that this disastrous episode is over,” he said in an earlier televised address.
The disaster also raised questions about how authorities alerted residents to the forecasts of intense rain, and the role of climate change in provoking it. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said heavy floods in Europe were the “dramatic reality of climate change” and called on EU countries to make better preparations for extreme weather events.
The death toll was expected to be the worst caused by flooding in Europe since 2021, when more than 200 people were killed in Germany and Belgium.
Spain’s state weather agency Aemet said the storm was the most intense to hit the region since the 1980s. Chiva, a town 30km west of the city of Valencia, had almost a year’s worth of rainfall in just eight hours, Aemet said.
Videos on social media in Spain showed people clinging to trees to avoid being swept away, firefighters rescuing drivers trapped in cars and other vehicles being consumed by muddy flood waters.
Mazón said some people remained stranded in areas that were “absolutely impossible” to reach and others were without power. High-speed trains to and from Valencia were suspended and some flights due to land at Valencia airport were diverted. Schools and other public services in the worst-hit areas were closed.
Aemet first issued a “red alert” about the high probability of intense rain in the Valencia region at 7.36am on Tuesday, but experts said it failed to communicate the severity of the situation.
Professor Liz Stephens, professor in climate risks and resilience at the UK’s Reading university, said: “While a red weather warning was issued for the region with sufficient time for people to move out of harm’s way, a red warning alone doesn’t communicate what the impact will be and what people should do.”
She added: “The tragic consequences of this event show that we have a long way to go to prepare for this kind of event, and worse, in future.”
Spanish media reported that separate warnings from a public safety agency were only sent to residents’ mobile phones after 8pm on Tuesday, when many people were already trapped in their homes or cars.
Jorge Olcina, a geography professor at Alicante university, said Spain should introduce a new “black” weather warning to signal when lives are at risk.
Speaking to Cadena Ser radio, he also suggested that law enforcement officers should be deployed to make sure people do not leave their homes.
Dr Friederike Otto, lead of World Weather Attribution at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said: “No doubt about it, these explosive downpours were intensified by climate change. The atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to heavier bursts of rainfall.
“These deadly floods are another reminder of how dangerous climate change has already become at just 1.3°C of warming [above pre-industrial levels].”
Aemet described the intense rain as the result of a “cold drop”, which occurs when cold air moves over the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea and leads to the rapid formation of giant cumulonimbus rain clouds.
Climate Capital
Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT’s coverage here.
Are you curious about the FT’s environmental sustainability commitments? Find out more about our science-based targets here
