The deadliest flash floods in Spain's modern history have killed at least 214 people and dozens were still unaccounted for, four days after torrential rains swept the eastern region of Valencia, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday.

In a televised statement, Sanchez said the government was sending 5,000 more army troops to help with the searches and clean-up in addition to 2,500 soldiers already deployed, Reuters reported.

"It is the biggest operation by the Armed Forces in Spain in peacetime," Sanchez said. "The government is going to mobilize all the resources necessary as long as they are needed."

Valencian regional authorities said on Saturday night the total number of fatalities in the region was 211, plus two from Castilla La Mancha and one in Andalusia.

The tragedy is already Europe's worst flood-related disaster since 1967 when at least 500 people died in Portugal.

Hopes of finding survivors were raised when rescuers found a woman alive after three days trapped in a car park in Montcada, Valencia. Residents burst into applause when civil protection chief Martin Perez announced the news.

Volunteers flocked to Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences centre on Saturday for the first coordinated clean-up organised by regional authorities. The venue has been turned into the nerve centre for the operation, read the report.

In Valencia's Picanya suburb, shop-owner Emilia, 74, told Reuters on Saturday: "We feel abandoned, there are many people who need help. It is not only my house, it's all the houses and we are throwing away furniture, we are throwing away everything.

"When is the help going to come to have fridges and washing machines? Because we can't even wash our clothes and we can't even have a shower."

Nurse Maria Jose Gilabert, 52, who also lives in Picanya, said: "We are devastated because there is not much light to be seen here at the moment, not because they are not coming to help, they are coming from all over Spain, but because it will be a long time before this becomes a habitable area again."

The storm triggered a new weather alert in the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia, where rains are expected to continue during the weekend.

Scientists say extreme weather events are becoming more frequent in Europe, and elsewhere, due to climate change. Meteorologists think the warming of the Mediterranean, which increases water evaporation, plays a key role in making torrential rains more severe, Reuters reported.

At least 95 people have been killed in possibly the deadliest flooding to hit Spain in its modern history after torrential rain battered the eastern region of Valencia, sweeping away bridges and buildings, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Meteorologists said a year's worth of rain had fallen in eight hours in parts of Valencia on Tuesday, causing pile-ups on highways and submerging farmland in a region that produces two-thirds of the citrus fruit grown in Spain, a leading global exporter.

Residents in the worst-hit places described seeing people clambering onto the roofs of their cars as a churning tide of brown water gushed through the streets, uprooting trees and dragging away chunks of masonry from buildings.

"It's a river that came through," said Denis Hlavaty, who waited for rescue on a ledge in the petrol station where he works in the regional capital. "The doors were torn away and I spent the night there, surrounded by water that was 2 metres (6.5-feet) deep."

Footage shot by emergency services from a helicopter showed bridges that had collapsed and cars and trucks piled on top of each other on highways between flooded fields outside the city of Valencia.

Trains to the cities of Madrid and Barcelona were cancelled due to the flooding, and schools and other essential services were suspended in the worst-hit areas, officials said.

Power company i-DE, owned by Europe's biggest utility, Iberdrola, said about 150,000 clients in Valencia had no electricity.

Emergency services in the region urged citizens to avoid all road travel and to follow further official advice.

Some parts of Valencia area such as the towns of Turis, Chiva or Bunol recorded more than 400 mm (15-3/4 inches) of rainfall, leading the state weather agency AEMET to declare a red alert on Tuesday. It was lowered to amber on Wednesday as the rain eased.

There was also flooding in other parts of the country, including the southern region of Andalusia, and forecasters warned of more bad weather ahead as the storm moved in a northeasterly direction.

"(The floodwaters) took away lots of dogs, lots of horses, they took away everything," said Antonio Carmona, a construction worker and resident of Alora in Andalusia.

The death toll, which includes three people in other regions, appeared to be the worst in Europe from flooding since 2021 when at least 185 people died in Germany. It is possibly Spain's worst in its modern history as the number of victims surpassed 87 people killed in a 1996 flood near the town of Biescas in the Pyrenees mountains.

In 1957, dozens of people died in floods in the city of Valencia which led to the construction of a new course of the Turia river to prevent floods in the city centre.

Andalusia's regional leader, Juanma Moreno, said a 71-year-old British man had died in hospital of heart failure after being rescued from his flooded home in Malaga while suffering from hypothermia.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X that Europe was ready to help. "What we're seeing in Spain is devastating," she said on X.

ASAJA, one of Spain's largest farmer groups, said on Tuesday it expected significant damage to crops.

Spain is the world's largest exporter of fresh and dried oranges, according to trade data provider the Observatory of Economic Complexity, and Valencia accounts for about 60% of the country's citrus production, according to Valencian Institute of Agriculture Investigations.

Scientists say extreme weather events are becoming more frequent due to climate change. Meteorologists think the warming of the Mediterranean, which increases water evaporation, plays a key role in making torrential rains more severe.

"Events of this type, which used to occur many decades apart, are now becoming more frequent and their destructive capacity is greater," said Ernesto Rodriguez Camino, senior state meteorologist and a member of the Spanish Meteorological Association.

Hurricane Milton marched across central Florida on Thursday after making landfall on the state's west coast hours earlier, whipping up deadly tornadoes, destroying homes and knocking out power to nearly 2 million customers.

The storm made landfall around 8:30 p.m. EDT (0030 GMT) on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (195 kph) near Siesta Key, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

By 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT), wind speeds had reduced to 105 mph (165 kph), dropping Milton to a Category 2 hurricane, nonetheless still considered extremely dangerous. The eye of the storm was 75 miles (120 km) southwest of Orlando in the center of the state, Reuters reported.

A flash flood emergency was in effect for the Tampa Bay area including the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, the hurricane center said, with St. Petersburg already receiving 16.6 inches (422 mm) of rain on Wednesday.

The eye of the storm landed in Siesta Key, a barrier island town of some 5,400 off Sarasota about 60 miles (100 km) south of the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, which is home to more than 3 million people.

Governor Ron DeSantis said he hoped Tampa Bay, once seen as the potential bull's eye, could dodge major damage and that the worst of the predicted storm surge could be avoided thanks to the landfall coming before the high tide. Forecasters said seawater could still rise as high as 13 feet (4 meters).

DeSantis reported Milton had also spawned at least 19 tornadoes caused damage in numerous counties, destroying around 125 homes, most of them mobile homes.

"At this point, it's too dangerous to evacuate safely, so you have to shelter in place and just hunker down," DeSantis said upon announcing the landfall.

At least two deaths were reported at a retirement community following a suspected tornado in Fort Pierce on the eastern coast of Florida, NBC News reported, citing St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson. His department did not immediately respond to a request for details.

Pearson estimated 100 homes were destroyed in the county where some 17 tornadoes touched down, NBC said.

More than 1.8 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power, according to PowerOutage.us.

The storm was expected to cross the Florida peninsula overnight and emerge into the Atlantic, still with hurricane force, on Thursday.

Once past Florida, it should weaken over the western Atlantic, possibly dropping below hurricane strength but still posing a storm-surge danger on the state's Atlantic Coast.

In a state already battered by Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, as many as two million people were ordered to evacuate, and millions more live in the projected path of the storm.

Much of the southern U.S. experienced the deadly force of Hurricane Helene as it cut a swath of devastation through Florida and several other states. Both storms are expected to cause billions of dollars in damage.

ZOO ANIMALS PROTECTED

While human evacuees jammed the highways and created gasoline shortages, animals including African elephants, Caribbean flamingos and pygmy hippos were riding out the storm at Tampa's zoo.

Nearly a quarter of Florida's gasoline stations were out of fuel on Wednesday afternoon.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had moved millions of liters (gallons) of water, millions of meals and other supplies and personnel into the area. None of the additional aid will detract from recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene, the agency's administrator, Deanne Criswell, said earlier on Wednesday.

Trucks have been running 24 hours a day to clear mounds of debris left behind by Helene before Milton potentially turned them into dangerous projectiles, DeSantis said.

About 9,000 National Guard personnel were deployed in Florida, ready to assist recovery efforts, as were 50,000 electricity grid workers in anticipating of widespread power outages, DeSantis said.

Search-and-rescue teams were prepared to head out as soon as the storm passes, working through the night if needed, DeSantis said.

"It's going to mean pretty much all the rescues are going to be done in the dark, in the middle of the night, but that's fine. They're going to do that," DeSantis said.