Spain flood epicentre survives fresh rain alert

Spain’s traumatised Valencia region woke up unscathed after an overnight rain alert on Thursday, two weeks after the country’s deadliest floods in decades killed more than 200 people there.

National weather agency AEMET downgraded the highest red warning for rain for the eastern Valencia coast after a new storm made landfall without causing victims.

“It was a tricky night because it didn’t stop raining… we had never seen so much rain,” Jordi Mayor, mayor of the town of Cullera, told public broadcaster TVE.

“Practically all the streets” were submerged, stones and material were swept across the town and the civil protection headquarters were flooded, sparking a frantic clean-up effort, Mayor added.

Firefighters said on X that they would continue cleaning and pumping out water in the devastated region after a “tense night”.

Regional authorities in Valencia extended university and school closures, shut adult daycare centres and sports facilities and restricted road travel in the worst-affected municipalities to “essential vehicles” on Thursday.

AEMET issued an orange warning for swathes of the southern Andalusia region and part of the Valencia coast on Thursday, saying up to 100 millimetres of rain could fall in 12 hours.

The October 29 disaster killed 223 people — almost all in the Valencia region — and destroyed infrastructure and homes, with the final cost expected to soar to tens of billions of euros.

The latest storm wreaked transport havoc in and around the southern city of Malaga on Wednesday and thousands of residents were evacuated.

imm/js