Breaking waves in the mountain village of Chiva: a night full of horror from the floods in Spain

CHIVA, Spain (AP) — Irene Cuevas will never forget the sound of waves crashing beneath the balcony of her apartment.

If only there had been a flash in the darkness that gave her a glimpse of what sounded like a raging sea.

“It was a constant fear because we had no light to see,” Cuevas told The Associated Press. “We could hear the sound of the waves, it was incredible. The road was completely flooded and we were hoping for some lightning so we could at least see what situation we were in. It was just waves, currents everywhere.

“We have burned that sound of the waves into our memories.”

The Devastating flash floods in eastern Spain This week claimed over 200 lives and destroyed countless homes and livelihoods. It also left a scar of terror on many survivors

Cuevas, a 48-year-old embryologist, lives in Chiva, a hilltop village about 30 kilometers from the city of Valencia, whose southern outskirts were also devastated the floods on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In Chiva it rained more in eight hours than in the previous 20 months. Cuevas was at home and saw the ravine that divided her village suddenly flooded with rushing water.

The tsunami-like wall of water claimed at least seven lives in Chiva, home to about 16,000 people, and the search continues for more missing people, either in collapsed houses or in the ravine.

“It was frightening because that night it started raining and the water started flowing over the ravine and started washing away cars and trees,” Cuevas said. “The underpasses of the bridges began to become clogged with debris and water began to flow throughout the village.”

The gorge, called “Barranco de Chiva,” is normally dry but is fed by several other drainage canyons and carries water to the vineyards below.

The massive storm unleashed a surge of water that caused two of the four bridges over the gorge to collapse, while a third bridge became unsafe to cross. The sides of the ravine were eroded away, causing a sidewalk and several houses to collapse and tearing holes in others.

Cuevas, who moved to Chiva after getting married 18 years ago, lives one street away from the buildings that border the ravine. She and other residents of her apartment building helped several neighbors out of the building in front when they feared it would collapse. Neighbors said their building shook from the force of the water.

Cuevas and her fellow residents helped tie ropes or cords across the street so people on the other side could hold on as they waded through the rushing water. Then they made it upstairs and about 20 people spent a sleepless night in their second floor apartment and the apartment above.

Amparo Cerda, Cuevas' upstairs neighbor, described herself as traumatized by her memories of the violence of the waves and the sound of “exploding doors” from the force of the water.

It was as if their building had become a ship, lost at sea in a storm in the pitch-black night.

“There were ripples in the canyon, ripples in the road below where the water was coming the other way and running into the water coming out of the canyon,” Cuevas said. “Right here, on this corner, right where the houses collapsed, the two currents met and created terrible waves.”

“When it got light, we could see the damage,” Cuevas said. “We saw all the houses that had disappeared and there was a feeling of helplessness because you didn’t know where to start looking for people.”

Five days have passed since that night of terror, and in Chiva and other places such as Paiporta, Barrio de la Torre and Massanassa Citizens and volunteers pitch to clear away the piles of rubble and the thick layers of brown mud left behind by the water.

Five thousand more soldiers are arriving in the region this weekend to help the 2,500 troops already deployed. Thousands of police officers were also deployed.

But for now it is still the people themselves who show the way.

“Now we have to clean up and try to get back to normality because more rain is forecast for the weekend and that won't help,” Cuevas said. “We are trying to prepare everything for the return of the rain. Because they will.”