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During a visit to flood-ravaged Paiporta near Valencia on Sunday, King Felipe VI and government officials faced angry survivors who hurled mud and shouted insults. Police intervened to control the crowd, which expressed outrage following the deaths of more than 200 people.
Furious locals pelted Spain’s royals and premier on Sunday with mud and cries of “murderers!”, forcing officials to cut short their visit to the town worst hit by the floods which have killed more than 200.
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The angry crowd in the town of Paiporta focused most of its wrath on Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the head of the Valencia region, both of whom were whisked away by security.
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia were hit in the face and clothes with mud as they tried to calm the angry crowd, AFP journalists saw.
Broadcast on Spanish television, the extraordinary scenes underscored the depth of the anger in the country over the response to the nation’s worst such disaster in decades, with the toll ever rising and hopes for finding survivors ebbing five days on.
The king and queen arrived just after midday at a crisis centre in Paiporta, ground zero for a disaster Sanchez called the second deadliest flood in Europe this century.
But more security guards were soon called to stand between the royals and the rest of the delegation and the angry crowd, whose ire seemed most directed at Sanchez and Valencia region head Carlos Mazon, AFP journalists saw.
While Sanchez and the politicians quickly left, the king and queen spent an hour trying to calm tempers before leaving themselves.
Later public television said that their visit to the flood-hit region had been suspended.
In a social media video published on Sunday night, the king told the country to “understand the anger and frustration” of people devastated by the flooding.
He also called on the public to give the victims “hope and their guarantee that the state in its entirety is present”.
Nearly all the deaths have been in the Valencia region, where Spain’s meteorological agency on Sunday evening issued a “red alert” for new storms in the region.
Police using megaphones urged residents in Valencia city and the surrounding region to return home as the first drops began to fall, according to an AFP journalist. The the AEMEt weather agency forecast “high intensity” storms bringing up to nine centimetres (3.5 inches) of rainfall in one hour.
