Floodwater Swamps Spanish Beach Town as Storm Waves Pound the Shore

Floodwater swallowed the streets of the beachfront in Daimús on Monday morning, October 19, surrounding homes and parked cars as heavy surf crashed onto the sand just beyond.

X user Pau Fuster Martínez filmed the scene from a balcony at around 10 a.m., writing, “Right now on Daimús beach, luckily it’s raining less hard now.” His footage shows murky water covering the sidewalks, spilling into front gardens and rising to the doors of parked cars. Next door, part of the awning over the Casa Carmen restaurant has collapsed, and at the end of a side street, white waves churn under a grey sky.

Daimús mayor Robert Miñana said the beach was the worst-hit part of town, and the motorhome area there was evacuated. Water also got into the Solimar care home, but staff avoided an evacuation by moving its roughly 150 residents up to the second floor. “Anyone with an underground parking garage has it flooded,” Miñana said. The town hall turned its auditorium into a shelter for rescued residents and vulnerable people.

Daimús was one of several beach towns south of Gandia, along with Guardamar, Bellreguard, Miramar and Piles, that were cut off overnight, with water more than a meter deep in places. More than 700 liters of rain per square meter fell on parts of the southern Valencia and northern Alicante coast, and waves of over four meters battered the shore.

The regional government kept Daimús under a stay-at-home order into the afternoon, one of eight municipalities where rescues were still underway. More than 450 people had been rescued across the region, and four deaths have been confirmed since the weekend.