On the evening of 29 October 2024, a slow-moving storm known as a DANA parked itself over eastern Spain and released more rain in a few hours than the region typically sees in a year. In Paiporta, a town of 26,000 people near Valencia, water rose to the first floor of homes within minutes, trapping residents who had only seconds to escape.
More than 220 people died, most of them in the Valencian community, and many victims were found in garages, cars and ground-floor flats where they had gone to shelter or retrieve belongings. Entire streets were buried under mud and wrecked vehicles, and months later some families were still searching for the missing.
The catastrophe set off a national reckoning in Spain. Officials were accused of sending flood alerts hours after the water was already moving, and angry residents hurled mud at the royal family and politicians during a royal visit. Scientists tied the scale of the event to the Mediterranean’s rising temperature, a warming that added extraordinary moisture to an already volatile storm system.