This fall, torrential floods have hit multiple parts of the world. In the United States, Hurricane Helene caused severe flooding in large swaths of Tennessee and North Carolina at the end of September. More recently, flash floods in southern and eastern Spain wreaked significant havoc on both road and air travel.
After more than 20 inches, or 500 millimeters, of rain fell onto the city of Valencia within the course of ten hours on Oct. 29, the entire road to the local Valencia Airport (VCL) was completely cut off from traffic by washed-out roads.
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Footage shared on social media platforms shows cars and buildings halfway submerged in water. As of Oct. 30, at least 95 people have been reported dead from the flooding in the Valencia and Catalonia regions.
Submerged cars, runway under water: Valencia Airport hit hard by flash flooding
When it comes to Valencia Airport, any flights in the air for Valencia were diverted to other Spanish cities as the flood situation started to worsen on Oct. 29. As of Oct. 31, airport authorities were still undoing the bottleneck created by dozens of canceled flights.
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“Getting to the airport by public transport is impossible. Some roads are blocked, but taxis can reach the airport,” the Belgian Consulate in Spain wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Severe weather and flooding is affecting many areas of Southern and Eastern Spain, particularly the Valencia region and Castilla La Mancha,” Spain’s Foreign Office wrote in its own update to travelers. “Journeys may be affected.”
Many of the passengers who were already at Valencia Airport ended up having no way to get out and spent the night of Oct. 29 sleeping on gate seats while waiting for the water to be cleared.
Photos from the floods show a large part of the airport’s runway submerged in water, while Spain’s national railway network Renfe issued a statement saying that all rail service into both Valencia and its airport (at five miles away from the historic downtown, it is much more centrally located than in most cities) was canceled “until the situation returns to normal for the safety of passengers.” Some tried walking back through the flooded streets around the airport before turning back around to the airport.
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Latest update: flights slowly start to resume but situation remains critical
Over 1,500 people were stranded at Valencia Airport. The massive bottleneck created by a day of canceled flights led to general chaos at an airport used to seeing large numbers of both locals and tourists.
Independently of the airport, rescue efforts are ongoing throughout the affected regions; the Spanish government issued a statement that “many missing people” remain under the rubble and buildings destroyed by the floods.
This type of flooding is the worst Spain has experienced since 150 people were killed in the floods of 1973. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declared a national mourning period of three days while some towns — among which are the Castilla La-Mancha village of Letur — remain completely inaccessible to rescue workers as many of the roads leading to it are too washed out for any foot or vehicle traffic to pass through.
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