It began with pictures of clouds and lightning. Then came hailstones the size of golf balls. 

Then the rain hit – as much rain as the region usually sees in right months fell in 24 hours.  

With the deluge came floods, and this morning the people of Spain’s Valencia region were coming to terms with what was being called an apocalypse.  

Floods of mud-coloured water tumbled vehicles down streets at high speeds, while pieces of wood swirled in the water with household items. 

Hundreds have died after torrents swept away cars, turned village streets into rivers and disrupted rail lines and major roads in the worst natural disaster to hit the nation in recent memory. 

The death toll has risen to at least 205 victims, 202 of them in Valencia alone. But this is certain to climb as the wreckage is cleared from a wide swathe of southern and eastern Spain, stretching from Malaga to Valencia. 

When the storm struck, people were stunned. Denis Hlavaty told how he had spent the night trapped in the gas station where he works as the waters rose, and how other people had climbed on the roofs of their cars to survive. 

"It's a river that came through. The doors were torn away and I spent the night there, surrounded by water that was 2 meters deep. I stayed on the top of a shelf, the only one left as the whole gas station had disappeared," he said, still in his mud-caked uniform. 

Authorities reported several missing people late on Tuesday, but the following morning brought the shocking announcement of dozens found dead. 

“Yesterday was the worst day of my life,” Ricardo Gabaldon, the mayor of Utiel, a town in Valencia, told national broadcaster RTVE. He said several people were still missing in his town. 

“We were trapped like rats. Cars and trash containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to three metres,” he said. 

Police and rescue services used helicopters to lift people from their homes and rubber boats to reach drivers trapped on the roofs of cars. 

 Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez said dozens of towns had been flooded. 

 “For those who are looking for their loved ones, all of Spain feels your pain,” Mr Sanchez said in a televised address. 

 “Our priority is to help you. We are putting all the resources necessary so that we can recover from this tragedy.” 

More than 1,000 soldiers from Spain’s emergency response units were deployed to the devastated areas.  

Rescue services were also rushing eastwards from other parts of Spain. Spain’s central government set up a crisis committee to help co-ordinate rescue efforts. 

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One elderly couple was rescued from the upper story of their house by a military unit using a bulldozer, with three soldiers accompanying them in the huge shovel. 

Television reports showed panicked residents documenting how waters flooded the ground floors of apartments, streams bursting their banks and bridges giving way.  

Dozens of videos shared on social media overnight appeared to show people trapped by the floodwater, with some climbing into trees to avoid being swept away.  

"(The floods) took lots of dogs, took lots horses, they took away everything," said Antonio Carmona, a construction worker and resident of Alora in the southern region of Andalusia. "Another neighbour got trapped in his car and we don't know whether he's ok or not." 

The speed of the disaster overwhelmed people, even after warnings were sent out in the hours before the rain hit.  

local mayor Consuelo Tarazon, who says they received "several" flood alerts before the floodwaters arrived in Horno de Alcedo. 

Ms Tarazon, mayor of Horno de Alcedo, a town just outside Valencia, told BBC Newshour the town was "flooded in minutes." 

"The first alert was about half an hour before the flood started, the second alert when we had already gone up to the upper floors out of fear because the water had already reached one and a half metres, and the third one came this morning," she said. 

Referencing Inferno from Dante's epic narrative poem The Divine Comedy, she said the scene was "a vision of hell". 

"In my 58 years I've never seen anything like this in my life." 

Spain has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years.  Nothing, however, compared to the devastation this week. 

The relief effort ploughs on, and in some areas are yet to properly begin. Many streets are still blocked by piled-up vehicles and debris, in some cases trapping residents in their homes.

Some places still do not have electricity, running water or stable telephone connections.

There is anger authorities have not been able to move faster. Residents turned to the media to appeal for help.

“This is a disaster. There are a lot of elderly people who don’t have medicine. There are children who don’t have food. We don’t have milk, we don’t have water. We have no access to anything,” a resident of Alfafar, one of the most affected towns in south Valencia, told state television station TVE.

“No-one even came to warn us on the first day.”

“The situation is unbelievable. It’s a disaster and there is very little help,” said Emilio Cuartero, a resident of Masanasa, on the outskirts of Valencia. “We need machinery, cranes, so that the sites can be accessed. We need a lot of help. And bread and water.”

Spain is still recovering from a severe drought and continues to register record high temperatures in recent years.  

Scientists say increased episodes of extreme weather are likely linked to climate change, with disasters are freak weather rarely seen in Europe now becoming an annual occurrence.  

The devastation recalls floods in Germany and Belgium in 2021 that saw 230 people killed. 

People "should not be dying from these kinds of forecasted weather events", a climate expert told Sky News. 

Liz Stephens, a professor in climate risks and resilience at the University of Reading, said Spain was among the countries "where they have the resources to do better".  

"While a red weather warning was issued for the region with sufficient time for people to move out of harm's way, a red warning alone doesn't communicate what the impact will be and what people should do," she said. 

"Climate scientists have been warning for years that climate change will lead to more intense rainfall, and the tragic consequences of this event show that we have a long way to go to prepare for this kind of event, and worse, in future." 

Valencian regional president Carlos Mazon urged people to stay at home, with travel by road already difficult due to fallen trees and wrecked vehicles.  

Located south of Barcelona down the Mediterranean coast, Valencia is a tourist destination known for its beaches, citrus orchards, and as the home of Spain’s paella rice dish.  

Like some other areas of Spain, the city has gorges and small riverbeds that spend much of the year completely dry but quickly fill with water when it rains. Many of them pass through populated areas. 

Residents in communities like Paiporta, where at least 62 people died, and Catarroja, have been walking miles to Valencia to get provisions, passing neighbours from unaffected areas who are bringing water, essential products or shovels to help remove the mud.

Juan Ramon Adsuara, the mayor of Alfafar, one of the hardest hit towns, said the aid is not nearly enough for residents trapped in an “extreme situation”.

“There are people living with corpses at home. It’s very sad. We are organising ourselves, but we are running out of everything,” he told reporters.

“We go with vans to Valencia, we buy and we come back, but here we are totally forgotten.”