Spain floods latest: Rescuers dig for missing in underground shopping centre

Sir Keir Starmer’s senior ministers have drawn up plans to cope with extreme weather this winter following the devastating floods in Spain.

The cross-government work will ensure “we are domestically as resilient as we possibly can be” over the winter, Downing Street said.

At Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband pointed to warnings that 600,000 people in the UK could be at risk of flooding in future because of climate change.

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden led the Cabinet briefing on winter preparations, adding that “recent events in Spain were a reminder of the impact that, for example, extreme weather can have on local communities”.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We’re always preparing for all eventualities, whether it’s the impact of extreme weather, whether it’s impacts on the NHS.”

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “The link was made to the fact that climate change can result in extreme weather events. We have obviously seen these very devastating scenes in Spain.”

Vigilante groups, angry at authorities’ response to Spain‘s worst flood disaster in decades, have taken to the streets of the Valencian suburb of Paiporta to prevent what they say are widespread robberies and looting after dark.

The informally organised groups of stick-wielding locals are patrolling one of the worst-affected areas, where more than 60 out of at least 217 victims of the disaster died.

Martin, 19, told Reuters that he and his friends were taking the law into their own hands because they believed police were not carrying out their duty to maintain public safety.

“We’re patrolling because we don’t want our neighbours to feel the insecurity they’ve been feeling the past few days due to various robberies,” he said. “People have already lost enough.”

Public anger has mounted over what residents say was a slow and insufficient response by authorities, which led to King Felipe and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez being pelted with mud during their visit on Sunday.

Spain‘s prime minister Pedro Sanchez approved a 10.6-billion-euro (£8.9 billion) relief package for 78 communities.

Outlining the plans, he compared them to measures taken during the Covid-19 pandemic and said they include direct payments of 20,000 euros to 60,000 euros to owners of damaged homes, among other financial aid for businesses and municipal governments.

Mr Sanchez said he would ask the European Union to help pay for the relief.

The king’s comments came during a visit to the epicentre of their nation’s deadliest natural disaster in living memory, where a crowd of enraged locals hurled clots of mud left by the storm-spawned flooding at Felipe VI and his wife Queen Letizia.

Don Turner, 78, and his wife Terry, 74, had not been seen since Tuesday, when torrential rains began to batter Valencia. Ms Turner had told friends that they were “popping out” to shop for supplies.

The couple’s daughter, Ruth O’Loughlin, confirmed the bodies were discovered on Saturday. Ms O’Loughlin told BBC Radio WM that she found out her parents had died after receiving a message from their friends asking to call them.

Spain has deployed 14,898 police officers and soldiers in the areas hit by flash floods last week, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday.

Flooding in Spain happened along a line stretching from the Bay of Cadiz to Valencia. But some areas were more affected than others with torrential rain in Letur in Albacete, where troops have been deployed for search and rescue operations.

Rescuers today confirmed they discovered the body of a man who was one of the four missing people in Letur.

In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, three bodies were found in Letur: two women aged 70 and 92.

Satellite imagery has revealed before and after views of the disastrous Valencia floods. It shows green plains turned into a deluge of mud.

Divers are still searching for bodies in the flooded underground car park of the Bonaire shopping centre in Valencia.

Emergency crews are navigating murky waters to locate potential victims at the shopping centre, using boats to access areas where at least a metre of water remains.

Survivors described the terrifying event to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo as “a nightmare” and “worse” than the “tsunami movie” with shop assistants recounting how they narrowly escaped as torrents of water surged into the complex as people were throwing up and having panic attacks.

Bonair is equivalent in size to 100 football fields with 123 shops including Zara and H&M, 34 restaurants, a bowling alley and 12-screen cinema.

One local wrote on social media: “I was lucky enough to be able to get my car out of the underground car park because they told us to evacuate. When I drove mine out there were still people and around 30 cars. It makes me frightened to think what they’ll find when they drain it.”