Spain floods latest: Dogs being used in search for missing people as ‘stick-wielding’ vigilantes patrol streets

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As Spain grapples with its deadliest flood disaster in decades, tensions are escalating in the devastated suburb of Paiporta, Valencia, where vigilante groups, armed with sticks, have begun patrolling the streets to curb what they say are rampant post-flood robberies.

Following record-breaking floods that claimed over 200 lives across Spain, residents in some of the hardest-hit areas have turned to self-policing, frustrated by what they see as a lacklustre official response.

Groups of local men—some donning nationalist symbols—are patrolling rubble-strewn, poorly lit streets, seeking to prevent further victimisation by deterring alleged looters. The suburb of Valencia was one of the worst hit and was where the king and queen faced fury from the crowds, who threw objects and mud at them.

As search and rescue operations continue, authorities are using sniffer dogs to comb through a submerged underground carpark at a shopping centre, where severe flooding left vehicles and the structure underwater.

Following the record-breaking flash floods, emergency services are working around the clock to clear out the 1,800-space underground car park, where sudden, tsunami-like flooding caught staff and shoppers by surprise.

As police teams pump out the floodwaters and search through the roughly 50 waterlogged vehicles discovered so far, no bodies have yet been found.

Survivors described the terrifying event to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo as “a nightmare” and “worse” than the “tsunami movie” with shop assistants recounting how they narrowly escaped as torrents of water surged into the complex.