'It was so fast. The next day she was found dead inside'

The mangled car in which Jorge Tarazona’s three-year-old niece and sister-in-law died in last week’s flooding in Spain now hangs halfway off the ragged edge of a highway.

- PAOLO SANTALUCIA ,JOSEPH WILSON

His brother managed to survive, clinging to a fence. He and his family had been caught in traffic driving home to Paiporta on Valencia’s southern outskirts, Mr Tarazona said. They had no chance to escape when the tsunami-like wave quickly overflowed the nearby drainage canal and swept away everything in its path.

“They did not have time to do anything,” Mr Tarazona told the Associated Press, a week after the 29 October flash floods. “My brother was dragged away and ended up clinging to a fence.” His sister-in-law “could not get out and died with her little girl”.

Mr Tarazona had ridden a bike back to the site and taped a note on the car, asking for whoever eventually removed the wreck off the side of the highway to call him.

“It all happened so fast,” he said, tears coming to his eyes. “In half an hour, the current had carried away the car. There was no time, no time. She managed to send me the location of their car hoping for a rescue. The next day she was found dead inside.”

It’s unclear if the two have been included in the official toll of the 217 confirmed dead as fatalities mount up, eight days after the deadliest floods in Spain this century.

Paiporta has been labelled by Spanish media as the “ground zero” of the natural disaster that has also left 89 people still missing, while officials say the real figure could be higher.