PAIPORTA, Spain (AP) — The photos of smiling toddlers on the wall have somehow survived.

Almost everything else at the daycare – the cribs, the high chairs, the toys – was destroyed when an overwhelming wall of water swept through Paiporta, turning the Valencia municipality of 30,000 into the likely epicenter of the Spain’s deadliest natural disaster within living memory.

“We lost everything,” Xavi Pons told the Associated Press. He said the water level was above his head inside what was the daycare run by his wife’s family for half a century, and he pointed out the knee height where the mud reached.

“I’ve lived here all my life. This had never happened and no one could have imagined it would happen,” Pons said. “All of Paiporta is like this, everything is in ruins.”

Authorities say at least 62 people have died in Paiporta, out of 213 confirmed deaths in flash floods in Spain Tuesday and Wednesday. The majority of these deaths occurred in the eastern region of Valencia, and local media described Paiporta as “ground zero” for flooding.

Four days have passed since tsunami-like flooding swept through the southern suburbs of the city of Valencia, covering many communities in thick, sticky mud. The upcoming clean-up task remains gargantuan and the hunt for corpses continues.

Many of Paiporta’s streets remain impassable to all vehicles except bulldozers, as they are filled with piles of soggy furniture and household goods and countless wrecked cars.

Every foot is covered in mud. Some people brandish sticks to steady their step, as if walking these streets were hiking through a swamp.

A washing machine lies on its side among household waste in a church square. A huge tree trunk rests inside a store with no walls. Antique dressers, paintings and a teddy bear, all still identifiable among the unrecognizable wreckage trapped in the devouring mud.

Lidia Giménez, a teacher, watched from her second-floor apartment as the usually dry canal that divides the city – “Barranco del Poyo” – went from completely empty to overflowing in 15 minutes. She called the aftermath of the floods a “battlefield without bombs.”

And this happened without a drop of rain falling on Paiporta.

The storm had unleashed a downpour upstream. This deluge then headed towards Paiporta and other areas closer to the Mediterranean coast which were devastated by flash floods.

The inhabitants of Paiporta did not receive any flood warnings of the regional government on their mobile phones up to two hours after the dangerous waters passed.

The onslaught of water widened the river bank, tearing away buildings and a pedestrian bridge, tearing away metal railings from another bridge and dragging vehicles into the canal. Eight wheels are the only parts that remain visible from a truck overturned and sunk in the muddy bottom of Poyo.

The damage could take weeks to clean up.

Thousands of volunteers walked for more than an hour from the city of Valencia to help the residents of Paiporta, carrying buckets, brooms and shovels as they waded through the filth.

The owner of the house, Rafa Rosellón, was waiting for heavy equipment to arrive to remove two cars – one half placed on top of the other – which were swept away by the flood and landed in front of his house, blocking the door entry. He had to unscrew a metal grille and slip through a window to get in and see the mess.

“I can’t do anything until these cars are moved,” Rosellón said. “Government forces that could do something, whether from the regional government or the national government, have done nothing to help us. It’s us, the citizens and volunteers, who do all the work.

Some 2,000 soldiers are involved in post-flood emergency operations – searching for survivors, helping with clean-up and distributing essential goods – as well as 1,800 national police officers and nearly 2,500 Civil Guard gendarmes. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday they had rescued around 4,800 people and “helped more than 30,000 people in their homes, on the roads and in flooded industrial areas.”

Only a small contingent of soldiers were throwing mud in Paiporta on Saturday, when Sánchez promised that 5,000 more soldiers and 5,000 police were on their way to eastern Spain.

A few doors down from where Rosellón lived, a woman sweeping muddy water from her door burst into tears when asked what she had lost.

“I can’t find my husband, so none of this matters,” she said.

Another turn revealed a frightening scene; a street filled with half a dozen cars and crisscrossed with countless reeds that grew nearby before the flood. A man shouts from inside a house: “There’s nothing more I can do!” I can’t do anything more!

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Associated Press writer Teresa Medrano contributed from Madrid.

Joseph Wilson, Associated Press