More than 200 people died in floods in Valencia as heavy rain hit another region of Spain

Guy Hedgecoe
Independent journalist

The mayor of Paiporta on the outskirts of Valencia, Maribel Albalat, said the town was ill-prepared in terms of planning because there were many ground-floor houses there.

Six residents of an elderly care home died when floodwaters entered the building while they were still on the ground floor.

Albalat also suggests that there was an element of self-satisfaction there.

“We don’t usually have floods in Paiporta and people are not afraid,” he says.

Garages were a particular death trap, he adds.

“When it rains, people usually go to their garages to take out their cars in case the garage floods.”

This appears to be what happened in the La Torre neighborhood, where the bodies of seven people were recovered from the garage of an apartment building.