San Francisco Frontiers - Spain flood deaths top 200, more troops join rescue

The floods that have tossed vehicles, collapsed bridges and covered towns with mud since Tuesday are the European country's deadliest such disaster in decades.

The organisation coordinating emergency services in the hardest-hit eastern Valencia region said 202 people had been confirmed dead there.

Officials in neighbouring Castilla-La Mancha and Andalusia had already announced a combined three deaths in their regions.

Rescuers equipped with drones and sniffer dogs waded through water and rummaged through debris in search of the dozens of people the authorities believe are still missing.

The government is deploying an extra 500 troops to the stricken areas to bolster the 1,200 already on site for search, rescue and logistics tasks.

Some cut-off areas remain without water, food or power three days after the floods began, and many roads and rail lines remain inaccessible, raising fears the death toll will climb.

"There is still a pile of cars in the industrial estate, mountains and mountains of cars," Amparo Fort, mayor of the town of Chiva, told public radio RNE.

"Many must be empty, but we are sure others are occupied," Fort said.

According to national weather service AEMET, the town west of Valencia city recorded 491 mm of rain in just eight hours on Tuesday -- almost equalling a year's worth.

- 'People are desperate' -

Government minister Angel Victor Torres on Thursday vowed an uncompromising response to looting, in a sign order was breaking down in some places.

Police on Friday said they had arrested 50 people for incidents including theft from cars and a jewellery store.

In the Valencia region town of Aldaia, Fernando Lozano told AFP he saw thieves grabbing items from an abandoned supermarket as "people are a bit desperate".

"Until things return to normal and the supermarket opens, it's going to be very bad here."

Slabs of tarmac from destroyed roads littered fields inundated with murky brown water and mud caked the ground floor of homes in the Valencia region.

The courthouse in Valencia city has been converted into a morgue, where health workers wearing smocks carried stretchers covered with white sheets.

An army of hundreds of volunteers set off from Valencia on Friday armed with shovels, buckets and shopping trolleys laden with food and nappies to help distressed neighbours in the city's flooded suburbs, an AFP journalist saw.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hailed "the limitless solidarity and dedication of Spanish society" on X and pledged aid "for as long as it takes".

But the Valencia regional government urged people not to travel to the worst-affected areas, saying emergency services could not reach them and that roads risked collapsing.

Hundreds of people spent a third night without power or communications and slept in temporary shelters.

AEMET placed part of the southern Andalusia region on the highest alert level for torrential rain on Friday and maintained warnings for Valencia, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.

The storm that sparked the floods formed as cold air moved over the warm waters of the Mediterranean and is common for the time of year.

But scientists say climate change driven by human activity is increasing the ferocity, length and frequency of such extreme weather events.

V.Mitchell--SFF