“When the water started to rise, it came like a wave,” said Guillermo Serrano Pérez. “It was like a tsunami.”

The 21-year-old from Paiporta, near Valencia, is one of thousands of people who faced flash floods on Tuesday night which swept the region and killed more than 70 people.

He was driving on the highway with his parents Tuesday night when the water rushed through. They survived by climbing a bridge and abandoning their car in the fury of the floodwaters.

Although heavy rain lashed the area for hours, many, like Guillermo Serrano Pérez and his family, were caught off guard by the force of the floods.

However, the signs had been there.

Around 07:00 (06:00 GMT) on Tuesday morning, Spain’s weather agency Aemet warned that torrential rain was forecast for the Valencia region.

“Be very careful! The danger is extreme! Do not travel unless absolutely necessary,” the X read, before issuing “maximum red alert”.

Several alerts were issued throughout the day, warning local authorities to prevent people from approaching the river banks.

By 3:20 p.m., the regional emergency coordination center was already publishing images of heavily flooded streets in the municipalities of La Fuente and Utiel, west of Valencia.

Hours later, he said several rivers in the area were swelling and urged people to stay away from the banks.

But in most places, it was already too late.

Chiva – about 20 km away – was among the first to experience the full fury of the flash floods.

The deep ravine that runs through the town filled with water on Tuesday afternoon after heavy rains.

By 6:00 p.m., the city’s streets had turned into raging rivers, with the force of the water dragging away cars, street lamps and benches.

Emergency services rushed to help the region, but the speed with which the water filled the streets was unprecedented.

“A very heavy rain came from above very suddenly … and the water rose by a meter or a meter and a half in a few minutes,” said the mayor of Riba-roja de Túria.

Elsewhere in the region, reports began to emerge of people missing after being swept away by floods.

However, civil protection did not send a warning to residents of the Valencia region to warn them not to drive on the roads until more than two hours after 8:00 p.m.

Many questioned the timing of the warning, which came more than 12 hours after Spain’s weather agency issued its first red alert.

Some say it was too late for people to take refuge on upper floors or off the roads, which were busy with commuters returning home after work.

Paco was driving from Valencia to nearby Picassent when he was surprised by the floods that engulfed the roads.

He told El Mundo newspaper “the speed of the water was crazy” as he dragged the cars away: “The pressure was tremendous. I managed to get out of the car and the water pushed me against a fence which I managed to grab onto. but I couldn’t move.”

“He didn’t let me. He tore my clothes,” he said.

Patricia Rodríguez, from Sedaví, was also surprised by the floods while driving home from work.

She told local media that the water began to rise as she sat in a traffic lane near Paiporta and cars began to float away.

“We were afraid the river would burst its banks because we were right in the line of fire,” she said. She managed to escape on foot with the help of another driver and watched in horror as a young man nearby carried a newborn to safety.

“It was just as well no one slipped, because if we had, the current would have taken us out,” she said.

Social media posts help paint a picture of the chaos that engulfed the region as night fell.

In a video shared on X, wheelchair-bound residents of a care home in Paiporta could be seen trapped in a living room with a knee-deep brown flood.

Rut Moyano, a resident of Benetússer, near Valencia, described the increasingly desperate situation in her town on the X. Calling for help, she said she was sheltering with her neighbors on the upper floors of her building when one of them suffered a heart attack and died. .

“The Civil Guard arrived on foot but cannot access the property as there is a car blocked at the entrance,” she wrote in the early hours of the morning. “Can anyone tell me if anyone else can help?”

The morning brought its own set of challenges. Daylight revealed the full extent of the devastation, with dozens of cars piled on top of each other, businesses destroyed and entire towns covered in mud and debris.

In Valencia, a man named Juliano Sánchez was rescued with symptoms of hypothermia after clinging to palm trees for seven hours.

“I didn’t want to die,” he told El Periódico. “I grabbed hold of some palm trees and held on with all my strength so that the river wouldn’t sweep me away.”

But many were less fortunate.

Dozens of people are still missing in the region, while those who survived described being helpless in the face of horrific destruction.

“We saw two cars electrocuted and we don’t know if there were people inside,” a man told Las Provincias. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”