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Emergency responders are searching for bodies inside stranded cars and buildings following deadly flash floods in Spain that have killed at least 158 people.

Scenes of destruction have been left in the wake of the powerful floodwaters which hit the east of the country late on Tuesday and early Wednesday, marking Spain‘s worst natural disaster this century.

Cars have been piled high on top of each other, homes and businesses have been swept away, trees have been uprooted, and roads and bridges have been left unrecognisable.

Spain flooding latest: Looting breaks out as flood deaths rise

Damaged cars are seen along a road affected by torrential rains that caused flooding, on the outskirts of Valencia, Spain.
Pic: Reuters
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Damaged cars along a road on the outskirts of Valencia. Pic: Reuters

People work to clear a mud-covered street with piled up cars in the aftermath of torrential rains that caused flooding, in Paiporta, Spain, October 31, 2024. REUTERS/Eva Manez
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People work to clear a mud-covered street in Paiporta. Pic: Reuters

At least 92 people have died in the worst-hit region of Valencia, while deaths were also reported in Castilla La Mancha and southern Andalusia.

An unknown number of people remain missing.

“Unfortunately, there are dead people inside some vehicles,” Spain’s transport minister Oscar Puente said.

In the Valencian district of La Torre, nine dead bodies were discovered inside a garage – with a local police officer among the victims.

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Man pulled from deadly floods

Luis Sanchez, a welder, said he saved several people from floodwaters rushing through the V-31 motorway south of Valencia city.

“I saw bodies floating past. I called out but nothing,” Mr Sanchez said.

“The firefighters took the elderly first, when they could get in. I am from nearby so I tried to help and rescue people. People were crying all over, they were trapped.”

Read more on this story:
Lives have been ripped apart in Spain
Floods hit ‘like a tsunami’ – eyewitness

Satellite images from NASA show how severe flooding has impacted Valencia and its surrounding towns.

The images, captured on 30 October, show large areas to the south of the city covered in floodwater.

The Turia river, which runs through the city, can be seen at a much higher level.

The Pobles del Sud, a large lake nearby, overflowed. Much of the area surrounding the lake was covered in floodwater.

The worst of the destruction was concentrated in Paiporta, a municipality next to Valencia city, where 62 people have been reported dead.

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Spanish town ‘worst-hit’ by floods

Mayor Maribel Albalat told national broadcaster RTVE: “We found a lot of elderly people in the town centre. There were also a lot of people who came to get their cars out of their garages… it was a real trap.”

What has caused the devastation?

The flooding events in Spain have been hard to witness. But the rainfall there could never have been anything but devastating.

Chiva, located just to the west of Valencia, received 491mm of rain in an eight-hour window.

Some 100-200mm fell in surrounding areas with the accumulation of running water producing apocalyptic scenes.

In addition there have been over 20,000 lightning strikes.

Whilst the rainfall totals are astounding in themselves, this part of the world is simply not accustomed to huge quantities of water falling from the sky.

In an average year, Spain would expect somewhere between 50 and 100 mm of rain throughout the entire month of October but Valencia and Andalusia would expect far less – just 60–70mm. 

So how did this happen? It’s attributable to a DANA, a “depresion aislada en niveles altos” or a “cut-off low”. 

This is a low pressure system which becomes slow moving or stationary, blocked by high pressure elsewhere, which can only keep shedding its rain over the same area for long periods of time.

These systems are not that unusual. They occur when cool air from the north is drawn across the Mediterranean in late summer and autumn when the waters are war. The temperature differential enhances storms and rainfall totals.

But whilst not uncommon, this one was certainly extreme. 

And it hasn’t gone yet. This same system has continued to bring further heavy rain and thunderstorms today, but it has now moved a little further north and east, heading toward the French border and currently remaining to the west of Barcelona. 

The rain and thunderstorms are likely to continue for a few days yet with the Tarragona and Castellon regions still under an amber warning while a yellow warning remains in force for both eastern and western Spain.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday morning that Valencia had been declared a disaster zone and that the priority was to find victims and missing people.

He also urged those affected to stay at home as more torrential rain was forecast.

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“The most important thing is that I know Spanish people are aware that this phenomenon has not finished,” he said.

Sky News’ Europe correspondent Adam Parsons, reporting from Valencia, said the devastation suffered in the region is “enormous”.

“What we’re witnessing now are the locals here who are waking up and seeing what’s happened to their town and what has happened is something almost apocalyptic,” he said.

A nearby shop was left “absolutely wrecked” and looked like a “bomb has gone off in there”, he added.

Three days of mourning has been declared in Spain, beginning on Thursday.

Spain’s Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but this was the most powerful flash flood event in recent memory, and scientists have linked its strength to climate change.

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Russia’s ability to outmatch Ukraine with artillery on battlefield significantly reduced

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Russia's ability to outmatch Ukraine with artillery on battlefield significantly reduced

Russia’s ability to outmatch Ukraine with artillery barrages on the battlefield has significantly reduced to just 1.5 Russian rounds for every Ukrainian shell fired back, Western officials have said.

This compares with Russian forces launching at least five times as many artillery rounds as Ukraine could in the war previously – with the ratio at times much higher even than that.

The Western officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, put the levelling out down to a “wide variety of factors”.

These factors include limitations in Russia’s defence production lines, difficulties with transporting more rounds to the frontline by rail, and strikes by Ukrainian drones against strategic stockpiles of Russian and North Korean ammunition supplies inside Russia.

In addition, they said Western supplies of ammunition were helping to bolster Ukraine’s armoury.

However, vast quantities of Russian glide bombs appear to be compensating for the reduction in the country’s advantage on the artillery front, the Western officials signalled.

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Army could be ‘worn out in a year’

One official said there had been a “massive increase in Russian glide bomb use on the frontline to devastating effect”.

They said Russian forces were still gaining ground in Ukraine but at a terrible cost.

Read more:
How bad are things for Ukraine?

What could a truce deal look like?

The Western officials repeated earlier Ukrainian claims that Russia lost more than 2,000 troops, killed or injured, in a single day last month fighting against Ukraine – the highest casualty rate of the war.

Moscow has consistently dismissed Russian casualty estimates by Ukraine and its allies.

The Kremlin does not publish up-to-date figures. Ukraine is also secretive about its losses.

One of the Western officials said the figures “speak to the brutality of the frontline – very Somme-esque”.

The Battle of the Somme in France was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the First World War.

The Western official said Russian forces suffered 2,030 casualties on 28 November – “a new war high” and the first time the rate of dead and wounded had breached the 2,000-mark.

The official said the average daily rate of Russian dead and injured in Ukraine for the whole of November had topped 1,500 for a third straight month, putting the average at 1,523 personnel.

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South Korea’s ruling party leader calls for suspension of president over martial law attempt

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South Korea's ruling party leader calls for suspension of president over martial law attempt

South Korea’s president needs to be removed from power after his shock decision to impose martial law this week, the country’s ruling party leader has said.

Yoon Suk Yeol rescinded the declaration six hours later on Tuesday, but protesters and opposition MPs have called for him to be impeached, with a vote due on Saturday.

People Power Party leader Han Dong-hoon had said they are against impeachment, but he suggested that may change in light of “credible evidence” the president planned to arrest political leaders.

“I believe that President Yoon Suk Yeol’s immediate suspension of office is necessary to protect the Republic of Korea and its people in light of the newly revealed facts,” he said.

He did not explicitly call for impeachment, but claimed the president had ordered the arrest of prominent politicians on the grounds they were among “anti-state forces”.

The presidential office later denied any such order had been given, according to the Yonhap news agency, while the government said it was not preparing another martial law declaration.

Fearing another attempt to declare martial law, opposition politicians were rotating through parliament’s hall to block any attempt, a Democratic Party official said.

Read more:
Who is the president who plunged South Korea into crisis?

Politicians block the entry of the National Assembly. Pic: Reuters
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Politicians block the entry of the National Assembly. Pic: Reuters

It’s unclear if the president was meant to arrive at the National Assembly, where protesters have gathered to call for his impeachment.

For an impeachment to pass, the bill would need support from two-thirds of the 300-member assembly.

As the president’s party has 108 politicians, eight would need to side with the opposition for the bill to succeed.

If the president is impeached, he would be suspended until a trial can be held at the Constitutional Court, while the prime minister would serve as acting leader.

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The South Koreans who fought martial law

Meanwhile, the national police is investigating the president and Kim Yong-hyun, the defence minister who resigned after allegedly encouraging martial law.

Broadcaster YTN reported government and military prosecutors are also carrying out a joint investigation, while South Korea’s defence ministry said on Friday it has suspended three commanders.

Read more:
South Korea reeling from high-risk antics
South Koreans who stood up to martial law

The country’s special warfare commander, Kwak Jong-geun, claimed he defied an order from the former defence minister to drag politicians out of parliament. Instead, he said, he ordered troops not to enter.

“I knew it would be disobedience, but I did not order that mission,” he told an opposition politician’s YouTube channel, adding he ordered against carrying live ammunition.

“I told them not to go in.”

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Syrian rebel who seized key city of Hama in latest blow for Bashar al Assad speaks to Sky News

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Syrian rebel who seized key city of Hama in latest blow for Bashar al Assad speaks to Sky News

A Syrian rebel who took part in the capture of the city of Hama has told Sky News they will continue to push on.

In the latest blow to President Bashar al Assad, rebels in the Middle Eastern country took control of the central city on Thursday.

Speaking to Sky News, one rebel said: “Just as we liberated Aleppo and now Hama, we will proceed to Homs, and Damascus, and Deir el Zor.”

He also claimed to have received support from the people in Hama.

A Syrian rebel fighter in Hama
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A Syrian rebel fighter in Hama spoke to Sky News after taking the city

Abu Omar, a resident in the city of Hama
Image:
Abu Omar, a resident in the city of Hama

Abu Omar, a resident in the city, said they had been waiting “45 years… for this moment”.

When asked if he was afraid of the rebel attack, he said: “On the contrary, we’ve been waiting for this moment. Our children, our family, they’ve all come back to us.

“Everyone was a million times more scared before, praise God, we’ve been liberated. No more oppression and tyranny.”

Mr Omar added: “What’s happened to us here, has happened in Idlib and Aleppo… and the regime has completely failed.”

Rebels seize Hama

The Syrian army said it had withdrawn and taken up positions outside the city to protect civilians, hours after opposition fighters said they were marching towards its centre.

The insurgents said they had entered Syria’s fourth-largest city on Thursday after days of intense fighting with government forces on its outskirts.

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Air strikes hit Hama as rebels advance

The fall of Hama follows a lightning offensive by the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) and Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army.

The surprise assault saw militants capture much of Syria’s largest city Aleppo last week and reignited the country’s civil war, where the frontlines have largely been frozen in place over the last few years.

Read more:
Who are the Syrian rebels?
Analysis: The immense significance of rebel offensive

The battle for Hama saw fierce battles inside the city, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“If Hama falls, it means that the beginning of the regime’s fall has started,” the monitor’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said before the city was captured.

The rebels have another key city in their sights

Hama is infamous in modern Syrian history.

In February 1982, government forces led by Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of then-President Hafez al-Assad, and uncle of the current President Bashar al-Assad, surrounded the city to quash an anti-Baathist uprising.

Thousands were massacred as the rebellion was crushed. It is still considered one of the largest assaults by an Arab leader on his own people in recent times and is taboo in official Syrian circles to this day.

The capture of Hama by rebels is therefore both a deeply symbolic and hugely strategic blow to the regime.

After taking the country’s second biggest city Aleppo over the weekend, they have made fast progress around 100 miles south while seemingly encountering little resistance.

Syrian and Russian attempts to repel them, mainly using airstrikes, have failed.

Rebel forces are now barely 50 miles from Homs, another key city that sits on a major junction of highways in the country. That will be next in their sights.

The more territory they take, the more stretched their forces will become attempting to hold ground.

President Assad will need to fight back – Damascus is still a comfortable distance away, but the Syrian leader is weakened and won’t rest easy after this latest humiliation.

Map of Syrian

Hama is one of the few cities that remained under Mr Assad’s control during Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 following a popular uprising.

The central city of Homs, Syria’s third-largest, is around 40km (25 miles) away and is likely to be the rebels’ next target.

It sits on a major crossroads in Syria, linking the capital Damascus to the north and the coast to the west.

Smoke billows near residential buildings in a picture taken from a drone in Aleppo, Syria.
Pic: Reuters
Image:
Smoke billows near residential buildings in Aleppo. Pic: Reuters

Jihad Yazigi, editor of the Syria Report newsletter, said: “Assad now cannot afford to lose anything else.

“The big battle is the one coming against Homs. If Homs falls, we are talking of a potential change of regime.”

Mr Assad has been able to stay in power largely thanks to the help of his allies, Russia and Iran, but both countries – as well as the Iran-backed Hezbollah group – have been distracted by their own wars.

Russia has been preoccupied with its invasion of Ukraine since 2022 and Hezbollah in Lebanon has suffered heavy losses in its war with Israel.

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