Heavy rains in Barcelona have disrupted train services as troops search for more flood victims in Valencia

BARCELONA, Spain — Repeated storms in eastern Spain that led to… Massive flooding last week killed at least 217 people.Rain fell mainly near Valencia in Barcelona on Monday, prompting authorities to suspend commuter train services.

Spanish Transport Minister Oscar 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 screeched with warnings of “heavy and continuing rainfall” on the city’s southern outskirts. The warning urged people to avoid any normally dry gorges and canals.

Puente said the rains forced air traffic controllers to divert 15 flights at Barcelona airport, on the city’s southern flank.

Several highways are closed due to flooding.

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

Meanwhile, in Valencia, the search continues for bodies inside houses and thousands of wrecked cars scattered along streets, highways and canals. channeled last week’s floods to populated areas.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said authorities were still unable to give a reliable estimate of the number of missing people. However, Spanish national television RTVE broadcast pleas for help from several desperate people whose loved ones had gone missing.

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

Police spokesman Ricardo Gutierrez told reporters that about 50 vehicles have been recovered so far and no bodies have been found there.

The Bonaire shopping center’s 1,800 underground parking spaces quickly filled with water and mud on Tuesday and Wednesday as the southern outskirts 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 on their way. gigantic efforts to clean up dirt and garbage.

Many people feel abandoned by the authorities, their anger flares on Sunday when The crowd threw mud at the Spanish royal couple and the Prime Minister and regional leaders on their first visit to Paiportu, where more than 60 people died, and survivors lost their homes and still have no drinking water.

Spain is used to autumn storms that can lead to flooding, but the latest ones have caused the deadliest floods in Spanish memory.

Climatologists and meteorologists say immediate cause of flood was a cut-off, lower-pressure storm system that emerged from an unusually wavy and stalled jet stream. The record-breaking hot Mediterranean Sea probably contributed to this. This system simply settled over the region and caused the flood.

The Spanish Navy transport ship Galicia arrived at 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.