Adan Ortell Mor had a 7:30 p.m. appointment to cut a client’s hair at his salon in La Torre, Valencia, on Tuesday night. But when the client called to cancel because traffic was bad, it may have saved Mor’s life. Instead, he went home and saw reports of cars floating in floodwaters in a town upriver.

No warning. No alerts. That came about an hour later on his mobile phone. A blaring alarm sent to all residents in Valencia, telling them of heavy rains and to stay at home. Far too late for the many people already trapped in rising floodwaters.

This is the worst natural disaster Valencia has seen in decades. A year’s worth of rain dumped in less than 8 hours, according to Spain’s meteorological agency. The water came rushing down the rivers and tributaries towards the Mediterranean Sea, picking up cars and destroying bridges along the way. More than 200 people have been killed, with authorities warning the death toll is likely to rise.

But it is not unprecedented. Valencia suffered a similar deadly flood in October 1957 caused by the same seasonal weather phenomenon known as a Gota Fria or a Cold Drop. That disaster killed dozens of people when the Turia burst its banks in the crowded neighborhoods of Valencia city. It was so deadly that the city spent millions to reroute the river years later.

So, how did Valencia get caught unawares again?

Spain’s AEMET weather center in Valencia warned of heavy rainfall at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, raising the alert level to red in some areas and warning residents to stay off the roads in case of floods.

By 10:30 a.m., firefighters in interior towns like Llombai were rescuing people from the floods. AEMET warned residents to be vigilant, even if there was little rainfall in their areas, as ravines and gullies were quickly filling with water streaming down from the mountains toward the sea.

At noon, Valencia’s regional president, Carlos Mazon, seemed to downplay the crisis by saying the storm was subsiding, contradicting the warnings of emergency services. The statement was posted by his office on X but has since been deleted.

By 5 p.m., Valencia’s emergency services were swamped by hundreds of pleas for help throughout the region.

It was at 8 p.m. that cell phones finally buzzed with the public alert telling residents to stay indoors. Much too little, much too late, even for those downstream of the raging water who might otherwise have had time to prepare.

Politicians are pointing fingers at each other for the failure to act quickly enough. In the end, however, it’s residents like 70-year-old Valentín Manzaneque Fernández who are suffering the consequences. He is furious.

He spent two nights sleeping outdoors on a neighbor’s roof terrace before deciding to slog through hours of mud and debris from his home in the suburb of Sedavi to get food and water in Valencia city.

The waters have receded, but recovering from the destruction will take weeks and months. Valencia’s highways remain blocked or only partially usable, many choked by washed-up vehicles. Train tracks are so badly damaged that service is not likely to resume for weeks, according to Adif, Spain’s rail authority.

His salon business, he says, is completely ruined. But he counts himself lucky. His parents survived the 1957 flood and he managed to get them to safety during this disaster.

“It’s just material stuff that got ruined. The main thing is, my family is safe. We will get through it, my family is all right,” he said. “All we can do now is get to work and clean up.”

The full horror of the flash flooding in Spain began to emerge on Friday, just as new rainfall lashed southern parts of the country.

The storm has killed at least 205 people, with 202 of those in the hardest-hit region of Valencia, emergency services in the region said Friday.

It marks Spain’s deadliest natural disaster in decades.

The death toll is expected to rise as emergency workers fight to rescue those who are trapped and recover bodies. Authorities warned Friday that roads have collapsed in some areas, with emergency services unable to get access.

The Spanish Armed Forces have already rescued 4,607 people, Spain’s Minister of Territorial Policies Ángel Víctor Torres Pérez said on Friday.

SOS Desaparecidos, an association dedicated to sharing information about those missing through social media, said they have received reports of at least 1,300 people who remain unaccounted for.

The country has experienced significant autumn storms in recent years, but nothing comes close to the devastation wrought in the past few days.

More details are emerging of the devastation in the Valencia region, with residents reporting large amounts of damage and horrific encounters with the rapidly rising water. A courthouse was turned into a temporary morgue in the region’s capital, Valencia city.

In the city’s La Torre neighborhood, where the water rose to chest level, volunteers continue to search for more missing people.

Rescue teams discovered the bodies of seven people in an underground parking garage there on Thursday, according to national broadcaster RTVE, citing police.

The father of one of those who died in the parking garage, a local policeman, told Spain’s El Mundo newspaper that residents had rushed to move their cars, but the water rose faster than people were expecting, trapping them. Another woman was dragged into the parking lot by the moving water and died, he said.

The town of Paiporta, Valencia, where at least 62 people died, was described by Spanish public broadcaster RTVE as the “ground zero of the tragedy.”

A witness who was caught in the flash flood there told RTVE that he saw multiple cars floating past him with people begging for help. Many drivers found themselves caught on a highway and were swept away in their cars, as the road appeared to merge with a nearby river. A bridge also collapsed in the area.

At least six people died in a nursing home on the outskirts of the town, Paiporta’s mayor told the Spanish national broadcaster. While staff managed to bring most of the elderly people to the first floor, they were unable to save everyone.

Mud still fills the streets in many areas, with the mayor of Valencia sharing images of community clean-up efforts on Friday. “Vehicles are being removed, the square is being cleaned and food and water are being collected,” Mayor María José Catalá said of La Torre.

The regional government of Valencia said power has been reestablished in 90% of places.

Carlos Mazon, the president of the Valencia’s regional government, defended his administration amid accusations that authorities failed to alert residents on time.

“The forecasts we received initially did not predict this (meteorological) revolution,” he said in a video posted on X.

Mazon said the regional government sent out “close to hundreds” of red alerts during the day of the storm, “including an SMS alert reserved for the worst possible scenario.”

Parts of Spain continue to see intense rainfall on Friday, and authorities issued a red warning overnight for the Huelva coast, in Andalusia, which had 140mm (5.5 inches) of precipitation in just 12 hours. Orange and yellow alerts also remain in place in isolated parts of Valencia.

The ground shook, windows shattered, and the cries of patients filled the air. An Israeli bomb had just struck Beirut’s southern suburbs in yet another near-nightly attack – this time hitting a building across the street from Lebanon’s biggest public hospital.

“I was treating a patient when the bomb went off. I fell over him from the shock of it,” said Mohammad Fouani, an emergency room nurse at Rafik Hariri University Hospital, recalling the aftermath of the October 21 attack. “The smoke was so thick; I could barely see my fellow colleagues.”

Israel said the strike hit a Hezbollah target, though the area was not covered in Israeli military evacuation orders for locations with alleged links to the Iran-backed group in the south of Beirut. At least four people, including a child, were killed and 24 injured in the residential building some 70 meters away from the hospital, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Lebanon’s health sector has been in the thick of a ferocious Israeli air assault as Israel and Hezbollah trade fire in an ongoing war, with the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs hardest hit. In the first month of its all-out air offensive in Lebanon, which began on September 23, Israeli strikes damaged 34 hospitals, killed 111 emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and hit 107 ambulances, according to data compiled by the Lebanese health ministry.

Around 20% of all hospitals registered with the health ministry in Lebanon have been damaged in a month of attacks, with most strikes landing in their vicinity, according to data compiled by medical authorities.

“Health institutions are supposed to be sanctuaries,” said Abiad. “It’s clear that this is premeditated, that this is a state policy that Israel is following, whether in Gaza or in Lebanon.”

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon said on October 25 that “first responders heeding the call to help, including healthcare personnel and paramedics, have also been hard hit,” and called the number of attacks impacting healthcare facilities and personnel “alarming.”

The attacks on the first responders, said Abiad, has sent “a very chilling message: if you’re injured, you’re going to die.”

Since September 23, Israeli strikes have killed eight people inside the premises of four hospitals, and eight facilities have been forced to close, according to the health ministry.

Hospitals and other medical establishments are protected civilian objects under international humanitarian law. It is illegal, with few exceptions, to attack hospitals, ambulances or other health facilities, or to otherwise prevent them from providing care. In a report released on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch referred to Israeli attacks on healthcare workers in Lebanon as “apparent war crimes.”

The threat to Lebanon’s healthcare sector was felt most acutely on the night of October 21. As well as the strike that hit the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Israel also claimed that another major hospital in the south of Beirut, Al Sahel General Hospital, was located above a Hezbollah bunker. Hours later, hospital staff and patients evacuated the facility for fear it would be hit. The next day, journalists toured the premises and said they found no evidence to support the claim.

Israel published a 3D graphic to show what they claimed was a Hezbollah underground facility storing cash and gold beneath the hospital. Officials at Sahel General Hospital vehemently denied the accusation, and Israel has not struck the hospital.

For the Lebanese, the graphic was reminiscent of imagery released by the Israeli military last year alleging the presence of a Hamas “command-and-control” center under Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital. The hospital was later attacked by Israeli forces.

“For me, what’s really concerning is that the rhetoric from the Israelis is the same, especially when they talk about infrastructure beneath healthcare,” said Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an American physician who volunteered at Gaza’s Al Nasser hospital in Khan Younis earlier this year and is now working in Lebanon.

Ahmad said all healthcare workers he’s interacted with are “pessimistic,” and fear the health system will suffer the same fate as it has in Gaza.

Fragmentation zones

Israel’s air, ground and naval assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon has decimated the Iran-backed group’s military leadership and dealt harsh blows to its rank-and-file, as well as to its arsenal of weaponry. It has also killed hundreds of civilians, according to health authorities, and destroyed large swathes of civilian infrastructure.

Israel has regularly dropped 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound bombs on Lebanon, according to analysis of aftermath imagery by weapons experts, inflicting catastrophic damage to neighborhoods and towns. The Israeli military has argued that it has deployed these bombs as bunker busters to destroy Hezbollah’s underground infrastructure.

The lethal fragmentation radius of these bombs puts nearby people and civilian structures, such as hospitals, at serious risk. When they are dropped, white-hot metal fragments can fly out in all directions, tearing through their surroundings. Known by experts as a “kill zone,” the area of exposure to injury or death around a target can range from 340 meters for small-diameter bombs, to 365 meters for 1,000 and 2,000 bombs, weapons experts say.

All eight hospitals in the southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, fell within the lethal fragmentation zones of verified airstrikes. According to the health ministry, all of these healthcare facilities were damaged in the first month of Israel’s offensive since late September. Three hospitals on the edges of the area were also damaged, according to the ministry’s data.

Almost all of Hezbollah’s leadership were killed in Israeli strikes in Dahiyeh, the group’s seat of power. Several videos of attacks there have shown signs of secondary explosions – evidence that at least some of the targets were weapons depots.

Beirut’s southern suburbs, previously home to around a million people, were also a major flashpoint of Israeli attacks in the country’s last all-out war with Lebanon in 2006. Airstrikes there transformed large parts of the area into a seemingly endless stretch of rubble and detritus. Yet back then, the bombing campaign left hospitals in the south of Beirut comparatively unscathed.

Under international law, a hospital can lose its special protected status only if it is being used for military purposes. But the wounded and sick inside are still protected by the principle of proportionality, and time must be given for evacuation before an attack.

The analysis found that the weapon was likely a GBU-39.

The hardest-hit health facilities have been in the southernmost part of Lebanon, where the Israeli air assault has been the most intense and ground forces have been met with fierce resistance from Hezbollah fighters. It was in that region that the first of the country’s hospitals shuttered after the start of the all-out offensive.

In the town of Bint Jbeil, Israel struck a mosque which it described as a command center within the compound of the Salah Ghandour hospital on October 4. Ten people inside the hospital were injured, according to the health ministry, forcing it to close.

That day, an Israeli airstrike hit the premises of Marjayoun governmental hospital in a southern Christian town of the same name.

The night that a nearby strike rocked Beirut’s Rafik Hariri University Hospital there was panicked discussion among the staff about whether to evacuate. “Because of Gaza and what happened to the hospitals in the south and the rest of the country, our initial thought was that the hospital itself was hit,” said Rafik Hariri University Hospital director Jihad Saadeh. “But when we saw that it wasn’t a direct hit, we were reassured. We continued our work.”

For Nurse Foany, merely considering the evacuation was a terrifying thought. “Can you imagine what that was like? Imagine evacuating Lebanon’s largest public hospital, not just its staff but its sick and its injured in a single night,” he said. “It was a horrific thought.”

Moldovans vote in the second round of a crucial presidential election on Sunday, which could determine whether the post-Soviet country stays its course toward Europe or lurches back into the Kremlin’s orbit.

Maia Sandu, the pro-Western president, is seeking reelection after guiding Moldova closer to the European Union than ever before while Russia’s war in Ukraine raged near its eastern border.

Sandu secured 42% of the first-round vote, held on the same day as a referendum on EU membership that passed by the thinnest of margins. Both votes were marred by a vast Kremlin-linked vote-buying scheme, which Sandu said amounted to an “unprecedented assault” on Moldova’s democracy.

She faces Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general running for the pro-Russian Party of Socialists. If other Kremlin-friendly parties swing their support behind him, the second round will be extremely close.

In last Sunday’s presidential debate, Sandu – a Harvard-educated former World Bank official who has cut ties with Moscow – called Stoianoglo a “Trojan Horse” seeking to infiltrate the country’s capital, Chisinau, on the Kremlin’s behalf.

Before last month’s votes, Ilan Shor, a Russian-backed oligarch, offered to pay people for working to elect a Russia-friendly candidate and stop the referendum passing. Sandu said the scheme sought to pay off some 300,000 voters – about 10% of the population.

Despite polling at just over 10% before the election, Stoianoglo won more than 26% of first-round votes. Both the Kremlin and Shor have denied interference, but Moldovan officials have warned the second vote could also be targeted by similar schemes.

Apart from vote-buying, analysts say the first round revealed genuine opposition to Sandu, whose first term has been wracked by successive crises.

Although Sandu has weaned Moldova off Russian gas, it came at a heavy cost to one of Europe’s poorest countries. Inflation briefly rocketed to more than 30%, causing poverty to tick up.

Some have also criticized Sandu’s “cynical” decision to hold the EU referendum on the same day as the presidential election, positioning herself as the only politician capable of bringing Moldova into Europe.

“The plan of the government was that the issue of European integration will drag up the support for Maia Sandu. It turned out the other way round: The discontent with Maia Sandu dragged down the support for European integration,” said Samurokov.

Stoianoglo is attempting to capitalize on discontent with Sandu by keeping one foot in both camps. He has called for a “reset” of relations with Moscow and said he would be willing to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, while maintaining he is committed to joining the EU.

As a result, his platform is a mix of contradictory policies, said Samurokov: “You either support European integration, or you want to promote cooperation with Moscow. It’s very difficult to reconcile.”

Still, Moldovan officials are braced for a second round of voting marred by pro-Russian meddling. A defeat for Sandu would land a crushing blow for Moldova’s hopes of a European future.

A Russia-friendly government could also spell further trouble in Transnistria, a separatist sliver of territory where some 1,500 Russian troops are stationed. Officials have long questioned whether Transnistria could eventually become a second front in the war in Ukraine.

Moldova’s election will come a week after Georgia’s, another formerly Communist state where Russia is seeking to keep its influence alive.

After the increasingly autocratic Georgian Dream party claimed victory, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Russia has “won” in Georgia and is on its way to doing the same in Moldova. Sunday’s vote will determine whether he is right.