The death toll following the recent devastating floods in Spain has risen to 202, according to regional authorities in Valencia.
The tragedy is already Spain's worst flood-related disaster in modern history, and the death toll is now the highest for a single country in Europe since Romania's floods killed 209 people in 1970.
Rescuers in Spain have opened a temporary morgue in a convention center and are battling to reach areas still cut off from the catastrophic floods.
In Valencia, the eastern region that bore the brunt of the devastation, at least 202 people have died, regional authorities said. Three have died in Castilla La Mancha and Andalusia.
Some 500 soldiers have been deployed to search for people who are still missing and help survivors of the storm, which triggered a fresh weather alert in Huelva in southwestern Spain.
The death toll is likely to keep rising, with dozens of people still not accounted for, Angel Victor Torres, minister in charge of cooperation with Spain's regions, told a press conference late yesterday.
With about 75,000 homes still without electricity, firefighters were siphoning petrol from cars that had been abandoned in the floods to power generators to get domestic supplies back on.
"We're going from car to car looking for any petrol we can find," said one firefighter who had travelled to Valencia from the southern region of Andalusia to assist rescue efforts, carrying a plastic tube and empty bottles to collect the petrol from the cars' tanks.
A year of rain fell in just eight hours on Tuesday night, destroying roads, railtracks and bridges as rivers burst their banks.
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