Floods in Spain have ruined lives – causing completely accidental damage everywhere

Walking through the streets of Paiporta means seeing nature at its most cruel.

There is chaos everywhere in this city. Lives have been torn apart, turned upside down and ended.

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Paiporta, a suburb about 6.5 km southwest of Valencia, cannot be entered, so we cover the last mile on foot. For most of the walk we pass fruit groves. The sun is getting warmer.

It could be a normal day. But then you come to town and normality disappears.

We turn a corner and find the road completely blocked by a wall of cars thrown together.

Off to the side, a family wades through the garage, which is under three feet of water.

There is a strange mixture of rubble all around. Most of it is covered in thick, sticky mud that clings to everything – the road, clothes, and all those bits of everyday life that have been swept away and mixed together.

So there is a children’s shoe, a beer cooler, a sweater, a corkscrew and a block of an engine block. All muddy, muddy and sad.

“We have to clean up,” the woman says, staring at the endless water in the garage. Her son comes in and takes things out.

There were three motorcycles parked here, including two new ones. They are all destroyed. Everything in sight is destroyed. But they know they are lucky.

Further down the road, on the other side of the wall of cars, they knew a couple who had been in their car when the floodwaters came in with shocking speed.

They both died – two of forty people known to have died in the city.

The damage is completely random. The car sits absurdly on a children’s slide. The paving stones are piled high and the front door opens to reveal houses engulfed by water and mud.

Outside, people try to push the water away with brooms and shovels.

On the way we visit Catarroja, usually a pretty town that welcomes many tourists.

Now the main street is covered with pebbles and as we enter we have to carefully avoid potholes, industrial waste bins that have driven into the street, and a long line of crumpled vehicles.

In fact, everywhere we go, the symbol of flooding is cars – thrown carelessly, thrown into gardens, into playgrounds, into rivers and streams, on top of each other and into houses.

They are smashed, overturned, dirty and broken, and the cars in turn have broken many other things. As water flowed through these cities, it lifted them and used them as weapons.

A woman walks past me and asks me to tell the world that there is no water or food. Everything was cut off and shops closed.

Half an hour later, I see her and her friend walking down the street with a shopping cart filled with food, arguing with other people. They quite clearly helped each other with what they needed.

Across the street, half-wedged in a tree, is a boat. We are quite far from the sea and no one seems to know whose boat it is or where it came from.

But here is the symbol of how this flood created such immediate discordant chaos.

We meet Weronika, who is walking with her two children. He takes them to his grandfather, whose house is outside the city.

He tells me they received very little warning before the flood – just an advance request to take the children home from school because there was a storm on the way.

“One minute it was raining, and then there were two meters of water,” he says.

“It was very scary. People were injured and some died. Now we have to help each other to fix this city.”

He looks around. – This will take a long time.

There are happier stories, stories of survival and courage. Three young girls approach us on the street to talk and show us a video of their father rescuing a man from the water when their path turned into a raging river (VIDEO ABOVE).

A man, local Luis, is kidnapped and desperately wants to survive.

Their father, leaning out the window of the family apartment, has dropped the rope and is holding on to it.

While watching, the man’s screams and the encouraging shouts of onlookers can be heard.

Slowly, slowly, he is pulled out of the water and climbs over the balcony to safety.

The girls were bursting with pride; their father apparently saved this man’s life. Amidst this horror, there are shards of bravery and joy.