A shocking timelapse video has revealed the devastating frequency of lightning strikes hitting Spain’s south and east coasts as the country is ravaged by floods that have killed more than 200 people in Valencia alone.
The video, shared by weather mapping service WxNB, showed tourist hotspots including Malaga, Marbella and Murcia were deluged with lightning strikes at around 3am on Tuesday night as heavy rain fell.
Lightning was then seen moving up Spain’s east coast, hitting Alicante and Benidorm before landing in Valencia, which was devastated by floods that night.
Storms also moved further inland from the south coast, bombarding Seville, before eventually passing Madrid and Zaragoza, when another cell briefly hit Barcelona.
Parts of the Valencia region in eastern Spain were inundated with more than a year’s worth of rain in just eight hours on Tuesday, triggering monstrous flash flooding.
The floods destroyed entire villages and a An unknown number of people are still missing and the death toll is only expected to rise.
The video, shared by weather mapping service WxNB, showed tourist hotspots including Malaga, Marbella and Murcia being inundated with lightning strikes.
The lightning was then seen moving up the east coast of Spain, hitting Alicante and Benidorm before landing in Valencia
Images taken on Thursday show wrecked cars abandoned on highways, smeared with brown mud and other bits of debris.
“Unfortunately, there are dead people in some vehicles,” Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente warned today.
A 71-year-old British man suffering from hypothermia was identified as one of the dead on Wednesday afternoon.
Walls of rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that entered the ground floors of houses and swept away everything in their path.
The aftermath, with streets jammed with vehicles and water pouring over usually busy roads, is eerily similar to the damage caused by a strong hurricane or tsunami.
Aerial photographs have revealed the apocalyptic scale of the destruction caused by the floods in Valencia
Aerial photo shows muddy roads near Valencia covered in wrecked cars and other debris
Destroyed vehicles, tree branches, downed power lines and household items, all covered in a layer of mud, covered the streets of Utiel, just one of dozens of towns in the hard-hit region.
Police today revealed that looters have taken advantage of the catastrophic flooding, robbing abandoned shops of valuable goods including computers, mobile phones and perfume.
Thirty-nine suspects have been arrested in the Valencia region, as the Guardia Civil continues to crack down on people hoping to take advantage of the chaos.
Meanwhile, desperate families have resorted to getting food and water from supermarkets, with heartbreaking pictures of children browsing the aisles of destroyed food stores.
The military has been called in to lead the search and rescue operation. Yesterday, 1,000 members of the Spanish armed forces were mobilized.
A terrifying clip shows an entire bridge in Valencia being washed away by floods.
A boat becomes stranded in a field after flash flooding in the Valencia region
Aerial photo shows devastated rice fields of Albufera in an area affected by the heavy rains
The Paiporta Bridge in the city of the same name was left completely destroyed when the river below overflowed its banks and continued to rise.
Shocked onlookers watched in horror as the concrete structure crumbled in the deluge.
The scenes in Paiporta – where at least one baby was counted among the dead – are among many captured by locals.
According to the Spanish Meteorological Agency, rainfall in the town of Chiva in Valencia reached a staggering 491 liters per square meter on Tuesday.
The city, just 30 kilometers west of Valencia, endured this amount of rain in just eight hours – the typical amount of rain in a whole year and an “extraordinary accumulation”, the agency added.