BARCELONA – The recurring storms in eastern Spain that led to massive flooding last week and killed at least 217 peoplemostly near Valencia, dumped rain on Barcelona on Monday, prompting authorities to suspend commuter rail service.

Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said he was suspending all commuter trains in northeastern Catalonia, a region of 8 million people, at the request of civil protection officials.

Mobile phones in Barcelona rang out with an alert for “extreme and continuous rain” on the southern edge of the city. The alert urged people to avoid any normally dry creeks or canals.

Puente said the rains forced air traffic controllers to change the course of 15 flights operating at Barcelona airport, located on the southern flank of the city.

Several highways were closed due to flooding.

Classes were canceled in Tarragona, a city in southern Catalonia halfway between Barcelona and Valencia, after a red alert was issued for rain.

Meanwhile, in Valencia, searches continued for bodies inside homes and thousands of wrecked cars scattered on streets, highways and canals that channeled last week’s floods in populated areas.

Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said authorities could not yet provide a reliable estimate of the number of missing people. Spain’s national broadcaster RTVE, however, aired pleas for help from several desperate people whose loved ones cannot be traced.

In the municipality of Aldaia, approximately 50 soldiers, policemen and firefighters, some in wetsuits, searched the underground parking lot of a huge shopping center for possible victims. They used a small boat and reflectors to navigate the huge structure with vehicles submerged in at least a meter of murky water.

Police spokesman Ricardo Gutiérrez told reporters that so far around 50 vehicles have been found and no bodies have been discovered there.

The Bonaire shopping center’s 1,800 underground parking spaces quickly filled with water and mud on Tuesday and Wednesday as the southern suburbs of Valencia were hit by tsunami-like flooding. The team uses four pumps to remove the water.

Citizens, volunteers and thousands of soldiers and police continued with them huge cleaning effort to clear the mud and scraps.

Many people feel abandoned by the authorities, their anger erupting on Sunday when a the crowd threw mud at Spain’s royal couple, the prime minister and regional leaders as they made their first visit to Paiporta, where more than 60 people died and survivors have lost their homes and still have no drinking water.

Spain is used to autumn storms that can lead to flooding, but the most recent ones produced the deadliest floods in living memory for Spaniards.

Climate scientists and meteorologists say the immediate cause of the flood was a broken low pressure storm system that migrated from an unusually wavy and blocked current. It was probably fueled by a record hot Mediterranean. This system simply parked over the region and triggered a deluge.

The Spanish navy transport ship Galicia arrived in the port of Valencia on Monday with marines, helicopters and trucks loaded with food and water to help with the relief effort, which included 7,500 soldiers and thousands of police reinforcements.