A British couple who went missing in Spain’s devastating flash floods have been found dead in their car, their heartbroken family has revealed.
Terry and Don Turner, aged 74 and 78, had not been seen since torrential rains hit the Valencia region on Tuesday.
The couple’s daughter Ruth O’Loughlin, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, confirmed today that her parents’ bodies had been found in their car on Saturday.
The retired ex-pats were found in a rural area near to where they lived on the outskirts of the small town of Pedralba, a 45-minute drive north-west of the coastal city of Valencia.
Mayor Andoni Leon said on Sunday that volunteer locals had found their bodies and that of a Spanish man themselves as part of a town hall-led attempt to locate the missing – with no outside help anywhere to be seen.
Friends of the couple said Terry had told them that they were ‘popping out’ to get some gas on Tuesday, their daughter said last week as she expressed fears over her parents’ fate.
They later went to check the pensioners’ bungalow, where they lived with their pet dogs, to see if they had managed to get home before the deadly floods swept in.
‘Friends had nipped up there because they hadn’t heard from mum and dad, the key was in the door, they could get into the property, the dogs were there and the car’s gone so they know that mum and dad haven’t gone back,’ she said last week.
Ms O’Loughlin previously told the BBC that her parents had moved to Spain around 10 years ago as they had ‘always wanted to live in the sunshine’.
They were popular in their community and had ‘lovely friends around them’, but had been considering moving back to the UK as they got older.
Ms O’Loughlin said she last spoke to her mother on Monday, the day before the floods hit, and said she had been ‘moaning about the rain’.
‘She was saying they wanted to do jobs to the house so they could put it up for sale but it’s raining a lot.
‘We talked about mum and dad coming over here next year to spend some time with us and we just ended the call and I’m really glad I said ‘I love you’ and she said she loves me too.’
As news emerged of the horrifying floods the next day, Ms O’Loughlin said he desperately tried to reach her mother and father but did not hear from them again.
‘We still don’t know exactly what happened to them,’ told BBC Radio WM. ‘The only thing we’ve got from this is that they were together. It’s not the way you want your parents to go.’
Their deaths bring the number of Brits confirmed dead in the tragedy to three, with a 71-year-old man losing his life after being rescued from the floods in Malaga.
The British man was rescued by boat last Tuesday by firefighters after his partner alerted the authorities because he was having an apparent heart attack and suffering from hypothermia.
He was taken to nearby Guadalhorce Hospital and stabilised before being transferred to a hospital in Malaga where he died in the early hours of Wednesday morning after suffering multiple organ failure.
At least 217 people have been confirmed dead in the disaster, which amounts to the deadliest natural tragedy in living memory in Spain.
Rescuers are continuing their grim search of cars and underground garages, where it is feared that dozens more bodies could yet be found.
Almost all the deaths have been in the Valencia region, where thousands of security and emergency services frantically cleared debris and mud in the search for bodies.
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez has said it was the second deadliest flood in Europe this century.
His government and the Valencian regional government have faced anger for what many are seeing as their mismanagement of the crisis.
The King and Queen of Spain visited the region yesterday, and were confronted by angry survivors who yelled and slung mud at them as they walked through the muddy streets in Paiporta, one of the hardest-hit towns.
Queen Letizia could be seen with mud speckled over her face, while one of the bodyguards escorting the royals had seemingly been hit by an object as he had a cut on his forehead, which caused blood to run down his face.
The crowd shouted ‘murderers’ and other insults at the royals and government officials, including Sanchez, whose car was chased and had its windows smashed by furious protesters.
At one point, the crowd was so close to the King that they were able to have full conversations with him.
After one Valencian screamed at him, he said in response: ‘If you want, I won’t come and I’ll stay in Madrid.’
Police had to step in, with some officers on horseback to keep back the crowd of several dozens.
The floods had already started filling Paiporta with crushing waves when regional officials issued an alert to mobile phones that sounded two hours too late on Tuesday.
Throughout the royal visit to Paiporta, traumatised victims spoke with reporters and media outlets to tell of the dire situation and explained their anger directed towards the monarchs and the Prime Minister.
Jose Ribelles, a 23-year-old supermarket worker whose life had been upended by the flood, told the Times: ‘What do you expect? For us to tell him sweet nothings?’
He accused the Spanish state of not doing enough to support victims of the flood.
‘They wanted to kill us. The first thing you have to do is warn people when a dam is about to be overwhelmed and broken.
‘You can’t warn people when they are already drowning.’
He said he witnessed several dead bodies in the supermarket he worked at.
‘There were 12 deaths among my colleagues. The flood got them in the garage.’
Anger has been further fuelled by the inability of officials to respond quickly in the aftermath.
Most of the clean-up of the layers and layers of mud and debris that has invaded countless homes has been carried out by residents and thousands of volunteers.
‘We have lost everything!’ people were heard telling the King and Queen.
Even now, five days after the flood struck, many people still don’t have drinking water.
Internet and mobile phone coverage remains patchy, and most people only got power back on Saturday.
Stores and supermarkets are in ruins and Paiporta, with a population of 30,000, still has many city blocks completely clogged with piles of detritus, countless totalled cars and a thick layer of mud.
