More Than 70 People Dead After Worst Flash Flooding in Spain in 3 Decades: ‘A Total Wreck’

More than 70 people have died after severe flash flooding in Spain, officials said.

The floods walloped southeastern Spanish cities from Malaga to Valencia on Tuesday, Oct. 29, according to the Associated Press.

Government officials told Spanish newspaper El País on Wednesday, Oct. 30, that the death toll from the flooding has increased in Valencia to 72.

A year’s worth of rainfall fell in about eight hours in Valencia, according to Reuters and the BBC. It’s the deadliest flood in Spain in three decades, and more than 140,000 people are without power in Valencia.

It is also unclear just how many people are missing. Ángel Víctor Torres, Spain’s minister of territory policies, said, “The fact that we can’t give a number of the missing persons indicates the magnitude of the tragedy,” the AP reported.

Images from the flood-affected areas show damaged cars, people walking through the floodwaters and mounds of soil deposits left behind once floodwaters receded in some areas.

Valencia authorities said more than 200 people were rescued from cars after they were caught in the floodwaters, according to ABC News.

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Christian Viena, a bar owner in the Valencian village of Barrio de la Torre, told the AP that the mud is 30 centimeters (nearly one foot) in some areas.

“Everything is a total wreck,” she added. “Everything is ready to be thrown away.”

The Spanish government has declared three days of mourning in the wake of the deadly floods, according to The Guardian.

The European Union has offered its support to Spain. In a post on X, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said “Europe is ready to help” in Spanish.

“What we’re seeing in Spain is devastating,” von der Leyen wrote in English. “My thoughts are with the victims, their families and the rescue teams.”

Spanish President Pedro Sánchez expressed the government’s solidarity with the families impacted by the tragedy in a Spanish-language post on X.

“We will help you for as long as it takes,” Sánchez wrote. “We will not leave you alone. All of Spain is with you.”

Spain’s King Felipe VI also shared a post on X that said he was “devastated” by the floods and offered his “heartfelt condolences” to those impacted, according to the BBC.

This is the deadliest flood since the 1996 flood in the Pyrenees mountains that killed 87 people, Reuters reported.