Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia are to visit the disaster region around Valencia on Sunday as the death toll from the severe flooding reached 214 and dozens of people remain missing.
The regional government said the death toll had risen to 214 according to Europapress. Some Spanish media reported that up to 2,000 people are missing.
The royal visit comes five days after the severe storms battered the east and south of Spain. Their exact itinery has not been disclosed.
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, posted on X that he would be travelling with the royal couple.
The three visitors are likely to face some resentment in the villages west and south of Valencia, which were hit hardest by Tuesday’s floods.
Many people from the devastated communities felt completely abandoned in the first hours and days after the disaster, with cars and furniture piled up on the muddy streets of villages left without drinking water, food, electricity or telecommunications.
Many mayors took matters into their own hands and organized initial assistance for their inhabitants in the villages, which were cut off from the road network.
Support also came from volunteers who walked from the city of Valencia to the nearby villages with salvage equipment and donations of food, bottled water and clothing.
Severe weather continues to affect Spain’s Mediterranean coast. An orange alert – the second-highest level – is in effect in parts of the Valencia region, including the province of Castellón, where heavy rainfall may occur.
Recovery efforts are now in their sixth day. The search is particularly difficult in tunnels and flooded underground or multi-storey car parks.
On Saturday, Sánchez said a further 5,000 soldiers and 5,000 police officers would be deployed. The Spanish central government in Madrid says more than 3,600 military personnel are currently deployed in the worst-affected areas near the city of Valencia.
Previously, there had been harsh criticism, especially from the affected towns, which had been left to their own devices in the first few days. In many of the worst-hit 15 or so villages, roads are still blocked by piled-up cars or stranded household goods and covered in thick mud.
Help has now started to arrive in many of these villages, thanks in part to the efforts of many volunteers, and the power supply is also largely functioning again.
In the area west and south of the city of Valencia, an otherwise usually dry riverbed was turned into a raging torrent by the heavy rainfall on Tuesday and rushed towards the sea through several villages, causing severe damage.
Dozens of people are still missing, including in cars in flooded tunnels and underground car parks, where search operations are proving to be difficult.
