Valencia floods: 'I thought - we could die here'

A woman said she and her husband had a "brush with death" after being caught in flash flooding in Valencia while driving on the motorway.

Karen and Steve Loftus, from Dorset, were returning from visiting their daughter in the Netherlands when the traffic stopped and their car started to fill with water.

Mrs Loftus said it was only because they decided to get out the car when they did - and with the help of a Moroccan lorry driver - that they survived.

"There was moments where I thought 'we could die here'," said the 62-year-old.

Authorities in Valencia have said more than 150 people in the region have died as a result of severe flooding in Spain.

When the traffic stopped there was a "torrent" of water running off the surrounding fields, and Mrs Loftus said her husband wound down the windows before the engine cut out.

She said when their car started floating and the water had come up to her chest, they climbed out.

Afterwards, they saw another car crash into theirs, coming to rest on top of it with the water up to the roof.

"If we hadn't have got out of the car when we did, literally two minutes later, we would not have been able to get out... it was really, really scary," she said.

Karen Loftus said the water in the car came up to her chest

The central reservation was higher than the rest of the road, so Mrs Loftus said they "walked-swam" there.

"Some Spanish guys were at the top, they dragged us up over the wall," she said.

Then they ran through the water and "banged on the side" of a lorry.

She said the driver, Fadil, let them in and gave them towels and chocolate biscuits.

He drove through 5ft of water, making the lights in the lorry go out, and dropped them off at a hostel.

"He's such a hero," said Mrs Loftus.

"I don't know what we would have done without that man."

'Like a warzone'

On Wednesday, the couple managed to get to Valencia.

"It's like a warzone," said Mrs Loftus. "I've never seen anything like it."

They lost all their belongings as well as their car, but Mrs Loftus said she felt "lucky".

"I do keep getting flashbacks and [getting] emotional but I just keep feeling grateful," she said.

"We were in the wrong place at the wrong time... but it wasn't our time to go."

They are still stuck in Valencia because many of the roads are still closed, with abandoned cars "stacked" on top of each other.

She said their plan was to "hunker down" for a few days, and try and replace some of the belongs they have lost.

"[And we'll join] with the rest of the Spanish nation in mourning," she said.

"We will be mourning the poor people who did not survive."