Spain's catastrophic floods by the numbers: At least 219 dead, 93 missing and billions in damage

MADRID (AP) — The catastrophic torrential rains that overflowed rivers and normally dry canals in eastern Spain last week triggered flash floods that submerged entire communities and killed scores of people.

The deluge left behind a landscape of devastation, especially in Valencia, the hardest-hit region. The search for the dead and missing continues, more than a week since the Oct. 29 floods hit — as well as a gargantuan cleanup and recovery effort.

Here’s a look at Spain’s deadliest natural disaster of the century, by the numbers:

The historic floods caused 219 deaths, 211 of them in the Valencia region alone. Another seven people died in neighboring Castilla La Mancha and one more in southern Andalusia.

Ninety-three people have been officially declared missing, but authorities admit that the real number could be higher. Another 54 bodies remain unidentified. In total, 36,605 people have been rescued, according to authorities.

The full extent of the damage is unknown, but Spain’s Consortium for Insurance Compensation, a public-private entity that pays insurance claims for extreme risks like floods, estimates that it will spend at least 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion) in compensation.

The consortium has received 116,000 insurance claims for flood damage, with 60% of the claims for cars and 31% for homes. Spain’s Association of Insurance Companies anticipates the flooding will break a historic record for payouts.

The Transport Ministry has so far repaired 232 kilometers (144 miles) of road and rail tracks but the highspeed train line between Valencia and Madrid is still demolished.

The central government has approved a 10.6 billion-euro ($11.6-billion) relief package for families, business and townhalls. The Valencia regional government is asking Madrid for 31 billion euros ($33 billion) in aid as well.

The drought that has hit the country for the past two years and record hot temperatures helped magnify the floods, scientists say.

Spain's meteorological agency says that 30.4 inches fell in one hour in the Valencian town of Turis, an all-time national record for rainfall set on Oct. 29. The devastated village of Chiva also received more rain in eight hours than the town had experienced in the preceding 20 months.

The storms honed in on the Magro and Turia Rivers and the Poyo canal, turning them into swift currents that swept away everything in their path. To the human eye, it looked as if a tsunami-like wave of water and mud cut a swath through the southern outskirts of the city of Valencia.

The European Space Agency said that, according to satellite images captured on Oct. 31, water covered an area of 15,633 hectares (38,600 acres). About 190,000 people were directly affected, the agency said.

In all, 78 municipalities had at least one resident perish in the floods.

The emergency operation mobilized by central authorities has grown to more than 17,000 troops and police officers.

The operation includes 8,000 soldiers — 2,100 of them belonging to military emergency units specialized in disaster response — along with 9,200 additional police officers from other parts of Spain.

Thousands of ordinary citizens volunteered, with no definite estimate as to exactly how many, have helped from day one with the cleanup effort.

The government said that in the first week after the floods, authorities restored electricity to 147,000 homes and distributed some 178,000 bottles of water to places that were still without drinking water.

Spanish authorities have yet to say how many calls about missing people they received, give an estimate of the property damage, or release a calculation of how much land was devastated.

And at this point, no one can guess when the recovery effort will be concluded.

A volunteer organises food for victims after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

A helicopter flies over a devestated area after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Volunteers cross a railway track after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Volunteers take a break at the street where they clean up the mud accumulated by the floods in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A woman walks through the mud as she tries to arrive at her home on a still flooded street in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A volunteer takes a break near to the house where he clears up the mud accumulated by the floods, in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A man sits among debris after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

A man prays during a mass at the San Jorge church after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

People attend a mass at the San Jorge church after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

People attend a mass at the San Jorge church after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Volunteers clean up the mud accumulated by the floods in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Volunteers Izan and Oriana take a break in a playground, where they clean up the mud accumulated by the floods in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A bicycle is photographed covered in mud after the floods in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Dolores Merchan, 67, reacts in tears at her home, where she has lived all her life with her husband and three children, and which has been severely affected by the floods in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A firefighter sweeps away mud after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Dolores Merchan, 67, reacts as she is assisted by volunteers clearing mud from her home, where she has lived all her life with her husband and three children, and which has been severely affected by the floods, in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A nun gets her boots spray cleaned after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Volunteers make a human chain to evacuate the mud in buckets in an area still flooded with mud in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

People who have been working in the clean-up attend a mass at the San Jorge church after floods in Paiporta, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Saiz)

Gloves and cleaning utensils hang in a window during the clean-up after the floods, in a house in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A bathroom is photographed covered in mud after the floods in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

A couple of volunteers walk hand in hand down a muddy street in a flooded area in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Dolores Merchan, 67, reacts in tears as she is assisted by volunteers clearing mud from her home, where she has lived all her life with her husband and three children, and which has been severely affected by the floods in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Dolores Merchan, 67, looks down on her mud-splattered belongings from the house where she has lived all her life with her husband and three children, and which has been severely affected by the floods in Masanasa, Valencia, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The fate of an Indiana man charged with murder in the 2017 killings of two teenage girls who vanished during an afternoon hike near their small hometown was in the hands of a jury Thursday.

Richard Allen, 52, faces two counts of murder and two additional counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping in the killings of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14. He could be sentenced to up to 130 years in prison if convicted of all the charges.

The seven women and five men began deliberations Thursday afternoon after hearing closing arguments in the weekslong murder trial. Deliberations ended after about two hours and will resume Friday morning.

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland told jurors that Allen is the man seen in a grainy cellphone video recorded by one of the girls, known as Abby and Libby, as they crossed an abandoned railroad bridge just before they vanished on Feb. 13, 2017.

“Richard Allen is Bridge Guy,” McLeland told jurors. “He kidnapped them and later murdered them.”

He noted that Allen had confessed repeatedly to the killings — in person, on the phone and in writing. In one of the recordings he replayed for the jury, Allen could be heard telling his wife, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”

Allen's defense cast doubt on the confessions, putting up witnesses, including a psychiatrist who testified that Allen was delirious and psychotic after months in solitary confinement.

Attorney Bradley Rozzi closed by saying that Allen is innocent.

No witness explicitly identified Allen as the man seen on the hiking trail or the bridge the afternoon the girls went missing, he noted. No fingerprint, DNA or forensic evidence links Allen to the murder scene, Rozzi said.

And for more than five years after the teens were killed, Allen still lived in Delphi while working at a local pharmacy.

“He had every chance to run, but he did not because he didn’t do it,” he told the jurors.

The case has drawn outsized attention from true-crime enthusiasts, with repeated delays, some surrounding a leak of evidence, the withdrawal of Allen’s public defenders and their reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court. It has also been the subject of a gag order.

The 12 jurors along with alternates were sequestered throughout the trial, which began Oct. 18 in the girls’ hometown of Delphi, a small northwest Indiana city where Allen also lived and worked as a pharmacy technician. A special judge oversaw the case. Superior Court Judge Fran Gull, along with the jurors, came from northeastern Indiana’s Allen County.

In his closing argument, McLeland recapped evidence that an unspent bullet found between the teens’ bodies “had been cycled through” Allen’s .40-caliber Sig Sauer handgun. A firearms expert called by the defense questioned the state police analysis, and Rozzi dismissed it as a “magic bullet,” saying investigators had made an “apples to oranges” comparison of the unspent round to one fired from Allen’s gun.

The prosecutor also said a state trooper who had listened to more than 700 phone calls placed by Allen had identified Allen's voice on German’s cellphone video telling the teens, “ Down the hill ″ after they crossed an abandoned railroad trestle called the Monon High Bridge. McLeland showed jurors a digitally enhanced version of the cellphone video and said Allen was the man recorded walking behind Williams.

McLeland said Allen, armed with a gun, forced the youths off the trail and that he had planned to rape them before a passing van made him change his plans. Gruesome crime scene photos showed how the girls were found with their throats cut the next day, about a quarter-mile (less than half a kilometer) from the bridge.

The defense questioned the state's timeline with witnesses including a digital forensics expert who said headphones or an auxiliary cable were plugged into Libby’s cellphone for nearly five hours after she and Abby disappeared, raising doubts about the investigators’ belief that the girls were killed and left in the woods around 2:32 p.m. that day.

Attorney Andrew Baldwin argued during trial that one or more other people must have kidnapped the teens and returned them early the next day to the spot where they were found.

Prosecutors directed jurors again to Allen’s own words, in confessions he made to his mother and wife and also to a prison psychologist, correctional officers and the former warden of the Westville Correctional Facility, who said Allen wrote him claiming to have killed the girls with a box cutter that he later discarded.

Prosecutors said Allen's incriminating statements contained information only the killer could have known.

Defense attorneys argued that Allen's confessions are unreliable because he was facing a severe mental health crisis while under the pressure and stress of being locked up in isolation, watched 24 hours a day and taunted by people incarcerated with him. A psychiatrist supported the argument, testifying that months in solitary confinement could cause a person to become delirious and psychotic.

Before the trial began, Allen's lawyers had sought to argue that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a white nationalist group known as the Odinists who follow a pagan Norse religion, but the judge ruled against that, saying the defense “failed to produce admissible evidence” of such a connection.

In this courtroom sketch, Richard Allen, left, is seated next to one of his defense attorneys, Andrew Baldwin, inside a courtroom at the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi, Ind. on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (Li Buszka via AP, Pool)

FILE - Officers escort Richard Allen out of the Carroll County courthouse following a hearing, Nov. 22, 2022, in Delphi, Ind. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)

FILE - Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter announces during a news conference in Delphi, Ind., Oct. 31, 2022, the arrest of Richard Allen for the murders of two teenage girls killed in 2017. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

In this courtroom sketch, Richard Allen, left, is seated next to one of his defense attorneys, Andrew Baldwin, inside a courtroom at the Carroll County Courthouse in Delphi, Ind. on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (Li Buszka via AP, Pool)