Elderly and baby woman taken to safety amid floods in Spain

Joining the queue for water with plastic bottles in hand, Marisol Lara, a 62-year-old widow who grew up in Paiporta, said: “The authorities are not here, there is no mayor, there is no one.”

He adds: “We cannot live without drinking water.”

The death toll is the worst recorded for floods in Spain since 1973, when at least 150 people were estimated to have died in the southeastern provinces of Granada, Murcia and Almeria.

On Wednesday, a 71-year-old British man died of a heart attack in hospital, hours after being rescued from his home on the outskirts of Alhaurin de la Torre, where he was suffering from hypothermia.

There was no one trapped on rooftops or in cars after helicopters rescued about 70 people, regional officials said late Wednesday.

However, ground teams and citizens continue to inspect vehicles and houses damaged by floods.

As of Wednesday night, soldiers alone had rescued 110 people and recovered 22 bodies, the defense ministry said.

“We are searching house to house,” military emergency unit official Ángel Martínez told Spain’s national radio broadcaster RNE on Thursday.