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By Joseph Wilson

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

If only there had been a flash of lightning in the darkness to give him a glimpse of what looked like a roaring sea.

“It was constant fear because we had no light to see,” Cuevas told the Associated Press. “We could hear the waves roaring, which was incredible. The street was completely flooded and we were hoping for lightning to at least see what situation we were in. There were only waves, currents everywhere.

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“We have this sound of the waves etched in our memory.”

Devastating flash floods in eastern Spain this week, which claimed more than 200 lives and destroyed countless homes and livelihoods, have also left a scar of terror among 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 ravaged by Tuesday and Wednesday’s floods.

Chiva received more rain in eight hours than the city had experienced in the previous 20 months. Cuevas was at home and saw how the gorge that separated her village suddenly overflowed with rushing water.

The tsunami-like wall of water has claimed the lives of at least seven people in Chiva, home to some 16,000 people, and searches continue for others missing, either in collapsed houses or in the gorge.

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“It was terrifying because that night it started raining and the water started overflowing the gorge and 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 it is fed by several other runoff gorges and channels water to the vineyards below.

The huge storm sent a blast of water that toppled two of the four bridges crossing the gorge, while a third could not be crossed safely. The sides of the gorge were eaten away, destroying a sidewalk and several houses and ripping holes in others.

Cuevas, who moved to Chiva when she got married 18 years ago, lives a street away from the buildings lining the gorge. She and others living in her building helped several neighbors in the building across the street when they feared the building would collapse. Neighbors said their building was shaking from the force of the water.

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Cuevas and his fellow residents helped tie ropes or cords across the street so people on the other side could hold on while they waded through the rushing water. They then climbed the stairs and around 20 people spent a sleepless night in his second-floor apartment and the apartment above.

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

It was as if their ship had become a ship lost in a storm at sea in the dark night.

“There were waves in the gorge, waves in the street below where the water was coming the other way and flowing into the water coming from the gorge,” Cuevas said. “So here, on this corner, right where the houses collapsed, the two currents collided and produced terrifying waves.”

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

Five days have passed since that night of terror, and in Chiva and other towns like Paiporta, Barrio de la Torre and Massanassa, citizens and volunteers are mobilizing to clean up the mountains of debris and the thick layers of brown mud left at the water’s edge.

Five thousand additional troops are arriving in the area this weekend to help the 2,500 already deployed. Thousands of police officers were also dispatched.

But for now, it is the people themselves who are leading the way.

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

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