Shocking second looters raid Valencia retailer as mobs hit retailers whereas determined households resort to rummaging by means of mud to search out meals in flooded supermarkets – as loss of life toll passes 150

Looters have taken advantage of the catastrophic floods in Spain, robbing abandoned stores of high-value goods including computers, mobile phones and perfume, according to police.

Some 39 alleged perpetrators have been arrested in the Valencian region so far, with that number expected to rise as the Civil Guard continues to crack down on people hoping to gain from the chaos.

Shockingly, even as the death toll rose this afternoon to 140, security forces have been forced to divert personnel from rescuing victims to patrolling areas where shops are being ransacked, according to El Pais.

The areas worst-hit by looting include the popular Bonaire Shopping Centre, a mall near the Valencia’s airport, as well as the towns of Aldaia and Alfafar which are among the most seriously affected by the floods.

Meanwhile desperate families have resorted to taking food and water from supermarkets, with heart-wrenching pictures showing children picking through the aisles of wrecked food stores.

Footage shows people climbing under the mangled metal shutters of a supermarket and emerging with bags of food and bottles of water, while elsewhere locals have been seen wheeling out trolleys of supplies amid the almost apocalyptic scenes.

‘Given the situation in Valencia, it is completely normal that they take advantage of it, especially when what they are taking is water that is not available anywhere else,’ one sympathetic person commented. 

‘As long as it is water they are taking… Given this situation, I don’t think it is considered theft,’ another said.

Survivors of the natural disaster – the worst to hit Spain this century – awoke to scenes of devastation this morning after villages were wiped out by monstrous flash floods.

The torrents of water have claimed at least 140 lives, with an unknown number of people still missing and the death toll expected to rise as search efforts continue.

‘Unfortunately, there are dead people inside some vehicles,’ Spain’s transport minister Oscar Puente warned, as horrifying pictures have emerged of hundreds of cars and trucks stranded on roads stained brown with mud.

The aftermath, which has seen streets piled high with vehicles and water streaming down usually busy roads, looks eerily similar to the damage left by a strong hurricane or tsunami.

Wrecked vehicles, tree branches, downed power lines and household items all covered in a layer of mud covered the streets of Utiel, just one of dozens of towns in the hard-hit region.

Walls of rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that ripped into the ground floors of homes and swept away cars, people and anything else in its path.

Shocking before and after satellite photos as well as drone footage released by Spain’s National Police has laid bare the scale of destruction wrought by the brutal flash floods this week.

Residents who survived the surge were seen picking their way through the wreckage and debris littering mud-covered streets as the remains of cars, bikes and other vehicles lay smashed up against walls and bridges. 

Walls of rushing water turned narrow streets into death traps and spawned rivers that ripped into the ground floors of homes and swept away everything in its path. 

Spain’s Defence Minister, Margarita Robles, admitted the number of missing in the horror floods known already to have claimed 95 lives is ‘the big unknown at the moment’ and confessed: ‘I’m not optimistic’ when asked if she believed the provisional death toll would not rise. 

She went public with her fears about the potential for the death toll to increase dramatically as rescue workers using sniffer dogs on the ground and helicopters and drones in the air prepared for ‘the second phase of search and rescue’ in the worst-affected areas.

The province of Valencia has been hardest hit, registering 92 of the 95 deaths attributed so far to the freak storm.

More than a year’s worth of rain fell in just eight hours in the region’s towns and rural communities, some of whom can now only be reached by helicopter. 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is heading to the region to witness the destruction firsthand as the nation starts a three-day period of official mourning.

In their first official statement, the Civil Guard in Valencia -who have been credited with saving countless lives – said yesterday evening 1,200 people remained trapped between the A-3 motorway which ends in Valencia and the A-7 motorway which passes close to it.

The police force said in a statement released just before 7pm local time: ‘At the moment it’s estimated around 5,000 vehicles are still stuck and around 1,200 people are still trapped between the A-3 and A-7 in different places.

‘Our main operational efforts are focusing on helping and rescuing people and preventing looting.

‘We’re also co-operating in the identification of bodies and helping to keep communication channels clear.’

The Civil Guard added: ‘Our officers have carried out around 2,500 rescues so far.’

That figure gives an idea of the sheer scale of the emergency operation that swung into action after the scale of the tragedy became apparent yesterday following hours of torrential rain and flash floods that left cars ‘floating as if they were in a fish bowl’ according to one local.

More than 1,000 members of the Military Emergencies Unit UME, a branch of the Spanish Armed Forces, were mobilised yesterday and Defence Minister Robles said last night the numbers of military personnel helping in the search and rescue operation had been reinforced.

She said: ‘There are 301 heavy vehicles that are going from house-to-house and helping those people who can’t leave their homes.

‘They are being accompanied by 15 helicopters and 18 drones.

‘The UME, independently of what other organisations involved have been able to do, have recovered the bodies of 22 people and have rescued 110 people.

‘Taking advantage of a more favourable weather forecast (on Thursday), we have to try to begin what we call the second phase, which is the phase of search and rescue.

‘Some people are trapped, but there are many others who we don’t know whether they’re missing or not. This is the big question at the moment, how many missing people are there?

‘It’s important as well that water is drained from flooded areas. We don’t know what we’re going to find under the water.’

‘We are searching house by house,’ Ángel Martínez, official of a military emergency unit, told Spain’s national radio broadcaster RNE from the town of Utiel, where at least six people died. 

Thousands of people were left without water and electricity and hundreds were stranded after their cars were wrecked or roads were blocked. 

Valencia today remained partly isolated with several roads cut off and train lines interrupted, including the high-speed service to Madrid, which officials say won’t be repaired for several days. 

Yesterday, a British woman described how she miraculously escaped the deadly Valencia floods by climbing out of her car window before it was swept away.

Karen Loftus, 62, from Dorset, said she and her husband are lucky to be alive after they made the potentially life-saving decision to abandon their car.

The couple were travelling south on the AP-7 motorway to their home in Alicante on Tuesday evening when they were hit by a deluge of rain.

Mrs Loftus, who is the chief executive of UK-based charity Community Action Network, said the next thing they saw was a bridge in front of them being swept away.

She told Sky News that within ten minutes of being stationary, ‘the water had risen up and started to come into the car’.

The pressure meant they were unable to open the vehicle’s doors so they decided to escape through the windows.

‘Just after we got out of the car, another car floated on top of our car,’ Mrs Loftus said, adding that the water levels had already reached their chests.

The couple managed to seek refuge inside a lorry but ‘lost everything’ in the disaster including their car and some belongings dating back 20 years.

Entire towns were plunged underwater, cars swept away and people stranded in their homes in near-apocalyptic scenes.

A 71-year-old British man who was suffering from hypothermia was identified as one of the dead on Wednesday afternoon.

The government has declared three days of mourning with the floods described as Spain‘s worst natural disaster in more than 50 years. 

However, one British expat living in Valencia told MailOnline the impact of the deadly disaster could have been lessened if authorities acted earlier.

The mother-of-two, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘It’s so sad because the impact could have been reduced if the local council had planned better, but they acted too late. 

‘They knew this weather was on the way but didn’t tell anyone to stay inside.’

Speaking of the moment the disaster hit, she said: ‘The storm started as heavy rain first thing on Tuesday but took a massive turn around 4pm and got really intense.

‘However, because the government hadn’t cancelled anything yet everyone was already out picking up kids from school, driving back from work or at the shops and then they were stuck.

‘The weather intensified throughout the day but a warning wasn’t sent until 8.11pm. 

‘By that time many people were already out collecting kids from school or driving back from work, the alert would have been better earlier in the day.

‘Now they’ve told us to stay home today which they should have said yesterday – they’ve been too little too late on the warnings.’

It comes as terrifying footage emerged of the moment a bridge in Valencia was washed away late last night.

Paiporta bridge in the town of the same name was left completely devastated as the river beneath burst its banks and continued to rise. 

Horrified onlookers watched in horror as the concrete structure crumbled into the deluge. 

The scenes in Paiporta – where at least one baby was counted among the dead – are among many to have been captured by locals. 

The town, just 20 miles west of Valencia, endured this amount of rain in just eight hours – the typical amount of rain seen in a full year and an ‘extraordinary accumulation’, officials said.

The death toll is expected to rise sharply as emergency services continue their searches for dozens of people said to be still unaccounted for. 

Another clip revealed the moment a helpless woman was swept away by unstoppable flood waters.

The unidentified victim could be heard screaming as the deluge pushed her down a waterlogged street. 

Horrified onlookers stood on balconies above stretched out their arms in a futile attempt to come to her rescue in the chilling clip.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez this morning sought to reassure victims that the government ‘would not abandon’ them.

‘All of Spain weeps with all of you. Our absolute priority is to help you… We won’t abandon you,’ Sanchez said in a televised address.

‘For those who at this moment are still looking for their loved ones, the whole of Spain weeps with you,’ Sanchez added, vowing to ‘rebuild your streets, your squares, your bridges’.

Spain’s government announced the creation of a crisis committee – the equivalent of Britain’s Cobra emergency response committee – as the size of the disaster became apparent.

The country has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years, but nothing compared to the devastation over the last two days.

It is the worst flood-related catastrophe in Spain since 1996, when 87 people died and 180 were injured in a flash flood near Biesca in the Pyrenees.

The worst-hit areas are the province of Valencia where political leader Carlos Mazon first went public with news of ‘several fatalities’ in the early hours of this morning and the small town of Letur in the province of Albacete where six people including two council workers are said to be missing after a river burst its banks.

Two Civil Guard officers are feared to be among the fatalities after becoming trapped in a flooded basement in their police station in Paiporta near the city of Valencia, the capital of the province of the same name.

In nearby Massannassa on Valencia’s outskirts, a man died after getting trapped in a lift as he went down to a flooded underground car park beneath his apartment to check on his vehicle.

Heartbreaking footage from the same town appeared to show elderly and sickly residents of a nursing home sat in wheelchairs as filthy floodwater pooled around their knees.

Another heart-pounding clip showed a woman battling desperately to stay afloat as she tried to save her dog from their flooded home.

Rescuers just managed to reach her before her head slipped below the water and winched her to safety.