Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will visit the disaster area around Valencia on Sunday as the death toll from severe flooding reached 214 and dozens of people remain missing.
According to the regional government, the death toll has 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 heavy storms hit eastern and southern Spain. Their exact itinerary has not been revealed.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on X that he would travel with the royal couple.
The three visitors are likely to face some resentment in the villages west and south of Valencia, which were hardest hit 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 without drinking water, food, electricity or telecommunications.
Many mayors took matters into their own hands and organized first aid for their residents in villages cut off from the road network.
Support also came from volunteers who walked from the city of Valencia to nearby villages with salvage materials and donations of food, bottled water and clothing.
Severe weather continues to hit Spain’s Mediterranean coast. An orange warning – the second highest level – is in force in parts of the Valencia region, including the province of Castellón, where heavy rainfall is possible.
Recovery efforts are now in their sixth day. Searching is especially difficult in tunnels and flooded underground parking garages or parking garages.
On Saturday, Sánchez said another 5,000 soldiers and 5,000 police officers would be deployed. Spain’s central government in Madrid says more than 3,600 troops are currently deployed in the worst-hit areas near the city of Valencia.
Previously, there had been harsh criticism, especially from the affected cities, which had been left to their own devices in the first days. In many of the 15 or so worst-affected villages, roads remain blocked by piled-up cars or stranded household goods and covered in thick mud.
Aid is now arriving in many of these villages, partly thanks to the efforts of many volunteers, and the power supply is largely functioning again.
In the area west and south of the city of Valencia, heavy rainfall turned an otherwise dry riverbed into a raging torrent on Tuesday and flowed towards the sea through several villages, causing serious damage.
Dozens of people are still missing, including in cars in flooded tunnels and underground car parks, where searches are proving difficult.
