“Yesterday was the worst day of my life,” Ricardo Gabaldón, the mayor of Utiel, a town in Valencia, told the national broadcaster RTVE. He said several people were still missing in his town.

“We were trapped like rats. Cars and rubbish containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to 3 metres,” he said.
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The intense rain has been attributed to a phenomenon known as the gota fría, or “cold drop”, which occurs when cold air moves over the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. This creates atmospheric instability, causing warm, saturated air to rise rapidly, leading to the formation of towering cumulonimbus clouds in a matter of hours and dumping heavy rain across eastern parts of Spain.

Scientists say extreme weather such as heatwaves and storms is becoming more intense as a result of the climate crisis.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/30/spain-floods-torrential-rain-deaths