Dozens dead in flash floods in Valencia, Spain, as 1,000 troops join emergency response, officials say
Clara Margais/picture alliance via Getty Images
(LONDON) — On the streets of Alfafar on Wednesday, cars and caravans were strewn like toys in the muddy aftermath of the floodwater that had rushed through the Spanish town.
Emergency crews descended on Wednesday on that town and others surrounding Valencia, wading through washed-out neighborhoods, searching homes and looking for missing people following devastating flooding, according to emergency officials.
More than 1,000 troops had been deployed to the province to help with the emergency response, the Military Emergencies Unit, a branch of the Spanish military, said on social media on Wednesday.
The flash floods were caused by heavy rain, which by Wednesday morning had begun “easing off,” according to the country’s meteorological agency
“[B]ut there is still an orange warning in inland Castellón until 2:00 p.m.,” the agency said. “Caution in the northeast of the peninsula and western Andalusia: very heavy showers are possible. Stay informed!”
For some, the flood water arrived quickly and almost without warning.
Kewin Jacek Ryfa Stelmach told ABC News he was out to dinner with his wife on Tuesday in Alfafar when they noticed the water beginning to rise. He said he got up to move his car to a spot near the entrance of the restaurant.
“I saw the water was already entering the restaurant, so my wife and I ran to the car,” he said. “We started to drive not knowing which direction to take.”
As they drove, they became boxed in by other vehicles that had been stopped by the flooding, he said.
“For a moment I thought I was going to get trapped, since there were many cars and no one was moving,” he said. “We managed to cross a tunnel that was still dry. I managed to save myself and save the car. I saw a lot of people who couldn’t move forwards in their cars, others were broken down, and others abandoned them.”
In that town’s shopping district, some people had been trapped in an IKEA store as the surrounding area flooded, according to videos verified by ABC News.
And Ryfa Stelmach’s bother, Oskar, told ABC News his car became trapped in rising waters in the town, forcing him to flee with his partner on foot.
“The water reached our waists,” Oskar said. “We took a lady having an anxiety attack out of her car and headed to Sedavi Bridge.”
They waited until the floodwaters receded at 5 a.m. before walking towards Valencia, he said.
The regional emergency services of Valencia estimated that 62 people were dead in the wake of the flooding that took over the southeast of Spain after Tuesday’s storms.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
A view of the heavily damaged cars and partially collapsed building after the Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, on September 2, 2024. (Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Russian missiles and drones again crisscrossed Ukrainian skies on Monday night in strikes that killed more than 50 people and injured hundreds, Ukrainian officials said.
Most of the casualties were reported at an attack in Poltava, according to officials. Two ballistic missiles struck the Poltava Military Communications Institute as well as a nearby hospital, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
At least 51 people were killed and more than 200 injured in the attack in Poltava, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
“I have ordered a full and prompt investigation into all the circumstances of what happened,” Zelenskyy said on his official Telegram channel on Tuesday morning.
First lady Olena Zelenska described the attack as a “stunning tragedy for all of Ukraine.”
One of the buildings of the military academy was partially destroyed in the strike, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.
“The time interval between the alarm and the arrival of the deadly rockets was so short that it caught people at the moment of evacuation to the bomb shelter,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a post on Telegram.
Many were trapped under the rubble, and rescue workers are continuing to search for people, the ministry said.
Valeriy Parkhomenko, the deputy mayor of Poltava, told ABC News there are believed to be survivors under the rubble.
He said classes had been taking place in the military academy at the time of the strikes. There had been virtually no time for people to reach shelters, with the missiles hitting roughly two minutes after they were launched, he said.
A three-day mourning period has been declared in the city.
In total, Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram that Russia fired three Iskander ballistic missiles from occupied Crimea, one Kh-59/69 air-launched missile from Russia’s western Kursk region and 35 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones from two areas in Kursk and Crimea.
Ukrainian air defenses downed 27 drones, the air force said, with six more “lost.”
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said two people — a 38-year-old woman and her 8-year-old son — were killed in a strike on a hotel complex in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
Two other members of the family — the father and a 13-year-old girl — were buried under rubble but later rescued. Both are hospitalized in “serious condition,” the ministry said.
Further north, in the city of Dnipro, one person was killed and at least six injured by a Russian missile attack, the Interior Ministry wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine’s air defense units were active overnight in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Poltava and the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the air force said.
Russia’s intensifying long-range attacks on Ukrainian military, infrastructure and civilian targets have prompted Kyiv to push its Western partners — chief among them the U.S. — for permission to use Western weapons against airfields and launch sites within Russian borders.
Ukraine has scored notable successes within Russia with its own domestically produced drones and missiles, but Zelenskyy has repeatedly said Kyiv needs more advanced capabilities.
“The terrorist state must feel what war is,” the president said on Sunday. “To force Russia into peace, to move them from deceitful rhetoric about negotiations to taking steps to end the war, to clear our land of occupation and occupiers, we need effective tools.”
Following a deadly Russian-guided bomb strike on the city of Kharkiv last week, Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that such attacks can only be stopped “by striking Russian military airfields, their bases, and the logistics of Russian terror.”
“We talk about this every day with our partners,” he said. “We persuade. We present arguments.”
Curtailing Russia’s ability to strike from the air, Zelenskyy added, would be “a strong step to force Russia to seek an end to the war and a just peace.”
Smoke billows after an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese village of Al-Mahmoudiye on September 24, 2024. (RABIH DAHER/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Israel and Hezbollah are exchanging hundreds of cross-border strikes in the wake of the shocking explosions of wireless devices across Lebanon last week.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Israel has ‘additional strikes prepared,’ Gallant says
Israel has “additional strikes prepared” against Hezbollah, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, in a discussion with troops on Tuesday.
“Hezbollah, today, is different from the organization we knew a week ago – and we have additional strikes prepared. Any Hezbollah force that you may encounter, will be destroyed. They are worried about the combat experience you have gained,” Gallant said.
G7 warns escalation could lead to ‘unimaginable consequences’ in the Middle East
The foreign ministers of the Group of 7 said they have “deep concern” over “the trend of escalatory violence” in the Middle East, in a joint statement Tuesday.
The statement doesn’t call out Israel by name, it does call for “a stop to the current destructive cycle,” warning “no country stands to gain from a further escalation in the Middle East.”
“Actions and counter-reactions risk magnifying this dangerous spiral of violence and dragging the entire Middle East into a broader regional conflict with unimaginable consequences,” it reads, while calling for the full implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution that implemented a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
Additionally, the statement reaffirms the G7’s “strong support” for the ongoing efforts to broker a hostage release and cease-fire deal in Gaza.
Israel claims it killed top Hezbollah commander
Israel claimed it killed a top Hezbollah commander in Tuesday’s strike on Beirut, which killed at least six people and injured 15 others, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
The IDF said it targeted and killed Ibrahim Muhammad Kabisi, a commander of Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array.
“Kabisi commanded the various missile units of Hezbollah, including the precision missile units. Over the years and during the war, he was responsible for the launches towards the Israeli home front. Kabisi was a central center of knowledge in the field of missiles and was close to the senior military leadership of Hezbollah,” the IDF said in a statement.
The IDF also claimed he was responsible for the planning and execution of many terrorist plots against IDF forces and Israeli citizens.
At least six dead in Israeli strike on Ghobeiry neighborhood in Beirut
At least six people were killed and 15 others were wounded after Israel carried out a strike on the Ghobeiry neighborhood of Beirut on Tuesday, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
It appears the top floor of a concrete apartment building took the brunt of the strike.
US continues to urge Israel to avoid ‘all-out war’ with Lebanon as tensions remain high
The U.S. is continuing to urge Israel to avoid an “all-out war” with Lebanon as tensions between the two countries remain high, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said in an interview on “Good Morning America” Tuesday.
“I think we don’t believe it’s in Israel’s interest for this to escalate, for there to be an all-out war there on the north on that blue line between Israel and Lebanon. If the goal is to get families back to their homes, we think there’s a better way to do that than an all-out conflict,” Kirby said.
“The Israelis will tell you, yesterday, that they had to take some of these strikes because they were about to be imminently attacked by Hezbollah. They do have a right to defend themselves, but what we’re going to keep doing is talking to them about trying to find a diplomatic solution here, a way to de-escalate the tensions so that the families can go back in a sustainable way,” Kirby added.
Given the State Department’s warning to Americans to get out of Lebanon while commercial travel is still available on if he believes Israel may target airports in Lebanon as they have in the past.
“We want to make sure that there are still commercial options available for Americans to leave, and they should be leaving now while those options are available. But I won’t get ahead of operations,” Kirby said.
Kirby also dodged questions on what we might see from Hezbollah’s response to Israel, telling GMA he “won’t get into the intelligence assessment.”
“It’s obviously going to be something we’ll monitor very, very closely. I will just tell you that while we won’t get involved in the conflict itself there, around that blue line, because we don’t want to see a conflict at all. We’ll do what we have to continue to do to make sure Israel can defend itself.”
Lebanon death toll rises to 558 people, ministry says
At least 558 people have been killed — including 50 children and 95 women — and another 1,853 people wounded by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since Monday, according to the latest data from the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
Officials released the updated figures during a press conference on Tuesday.
The Israel Defense Forces said it struck at least 1,600 targets in Lebanon over the past 24 hours.
Israeli bombing prompts exodus from southern Lebanon
Thousands of people fled their homes in southern Lebanon after Israel killed hundreds in intensified airstrikes through Monday and Tuesday.
The mass movement of people — encouraged by the Israel Defense Forces before and during its expanding bombing campaign — prompted gridlock on highways running north toward the capital Beirut.
A journey that usually takes 90 minutes took up to 13 hours.
Authorities are working to turn schools and other educational institutions into makeshift shelters to house displaced people.
IDF, Hezbollah begin new day of cross-border fire
The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday its warplanes struck “dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon,” with artillery and tanks also conducting fire missions in the area.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, fired at least 125 rockets overnight into Tuesday morning. Sirens were sounding through the early morning in northern Israel.
At least nine people suffered minor injuries as a result of rockets fired into the Western Galilee region of northern Israel on Tuesday morning, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service.
At least 492 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes on Monday, according to Lebanese authorities. At least 1,645 people were reported injured.
The IDF said it struck at least 1,600 targets in Lebanon over the past 24 hours.
Blinken seeks ‘off ramp’ as Israel pounds Lebanon, official says
A senior official in President Joe Biden’s administration told ABC News the U.S. cannot rule out the possibility of an Israeli invasion into Lebanon following the escalation of its airstrike campaign on Monday.
“I think it is important for everyone to take Israeli preparations seriously,” the senior administration official said.
The U.S. is putting its hope in engagements on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly this week, said the senior administration official, who expressed hope that the informal meetings could lead to “illusive solutions” or “at least make some progress” toward resolving the crisis in the Middle East.
The official said Secretary of State Antony Blinken would discuss “the increasing challenges” across the so-called “Blue Line” dividing Israel and Lebanon at a meeting with his G7 counterparts.
At that engagement and through the week, the a key U.S. focus will be “finding an off ramp,” they said.
“We’ve got some concrete ideas with allies and partners we are going to be discussing,” the official added.
New details emerge over US troops being sent to Middle East
A U.S. official tells ABC News that the “small number of additional U.S. military personnel being sent to the Middle East,” announced this morning by the Pentagon is a small special operations team that will work in planning for a non-combatant evacuation operation should it be needed.
Lebanon warns UN its citizens face ‘serious danger’ amid Israel-Hezbollah conflict
A Lebanese parliament member addressed the United Nations General Assembly Monday sharing a warning that the country’s citizens are in danger as tensions between Israeli forces and Hezbollah intensify.
Member Bahia El Hariri attended the U.N. meeting in place of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
“The people of Lebanon are in serious danger after the destruction of large areas of agricultural land and the targeting of residential buildings in the majority of the regions of Lebanon,” Hariri said.
“This has damaged the economy of our country and threatened our social order, especially since several countries have asked their nationals to leave our country,” she added.
Separately, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “gravely alarmed” by the escalating situation between northern Israel and southern Lebanon and the “large number of civilian casualties, including children and women, being reported by Lebanese authorities, as well as thousands of displaced persons, amidst the most intense Israeli bombing campaign since last October,” in a statement issued by his spokesperson Monday.
“The Secretary-General is also gravely alarmed” by the continued Hezbollah strikes on Israel, the statement added.
Israeli Air Force fighter jets attacked “1,600 terrorist targets of Hezbollah” in parts of southern Lebanon in “several attack waves,” on Monday, the IDF said in a post on X.
US Embassy in Jerusalem issues travel restriction for government employees
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem issued a security alert “temporarily” restricting travel for U.S. government employees and their family members to parts of northern and northeastern Israel.
“U.S. government employees and their family members have been temporarily restricted from any personal travel north of highway 65 toward Afula and north/northeast of highway 71 from Afula to the Jordanian border. Any official travel in this area will require approval. Approved travel will take place only in armored vehicles. This is provided for your information as you make your own security plans,” the U.S. Embassy alert said.
Afula is a city in northern Israel.
“US citizens should take this into consideration when planning their own activities,” the alert read.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken (L) and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy arrive at Kyiv train station in Kyiv, on September 11, 2024, amid the Russian invasion on Ukraine. (LEON NEAL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — No decisions were made on Ukraine’s use of American long-range weapons against Russia during a meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian leadership on Wednesday, according to an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskky.
The discussion comes as Blinken announced more than $700 million in new funds to support Ukraine during remarks in Kyiv.
Restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American long-range weapons against targets inside Russia have been one of the most pressing issues for Blinken during the visit. America’s top diplomat was accompanied by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
During a lengthy meeting, Zelenskky and Blinken discussed lifting the ban on strikes deeper in Russian territory and weapon supplies, according to an adviser to Zelenskyy with knowledge of the meeting. Zelenskyy gave Blinken a detailed plan of how Ukraine could use long-range missiles for strikes into Russia and gave him a list of possible targets, the adviser said.
Blinken confirmed with reporters during remarks following the meeting that he discussed long-range fires with Ukrainian officials, “but a number of other things as well.”
Blinken said he will share what he learned from his talks with Ukrainian leadership on this trip with President Joe Biden, who is set to meet with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday to “discuss how to further help Ukraine.”
‘We have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we’ll continue to do that as this evolves,” Blinken said.
He said escalation from Russia — including the acquisition of Iranian ballistic missiles — is “one of the factors that we always consider, but it’s certainly not the only factor.”
“We’re determined to ensure that they have what they need to succeed,” he added.
Blinken said the more than $700 million in new funds announced on Wednesday will help repair Ukraine’s energy and electric grid and provide humanitarian support as Ukraine heads into the fall fighting season against Russia.
“We remain fully committed to Ukraine’s victory, to not only ensuring that Ukraine can defend itself today, but can stand on its own feet strongly, militarily, economically, democratically for many, many days ahead,” Blinken said.
The new funds include $325 million to help repair Ukraine’s energy and electric grid, $290 million in new humanitarian support to those displaced by the war and $102 million in additional funding to help remove landmines and unexploded ordnances left behind by Russia across Ukraine, according to Blinken.
“The bottom line is this, we want Ukraine to win, and we’re fully committed to keep marshaling the support that it needs for its brave defenders and citizens to do just that now,” Blinken said.
Lammy also announced more than 600 million pounds in new support for Ukraine, including 242 million pounds this financial year for immediate humanitarian energy and stabilization needs.
Lammy additionally announced that the U.K. will send hundreds of additional air defense missiles and tens of thousands of additional artillery ammunition rounds to Ukraine by the end of the year.
“Together, Britain and our allies are united in our commitment to Ukraine, to freedom, to victory, because we both recognize what is at stake here — not just the liberty of Ukraine, but the security of Europe and the security of the West,” he said.
Kyiv has long been advocating for U.S. permission to strike military targets within Russian borders, including airfields that are key to Moscow’s long-range missile campaign against Ukrainian cities.
“We continue to persuade our partners at all levels about long-range capabilities,” Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
“Russia can avoid seeking peace only as much as the world avoids making strong decisions aimed at Russia’s defeat. Long-range capabilities are one of those key, strategic decisions.”
Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News that Ukrainians are hoping for U.S. permission to use the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, colloquially known as the ATACMS, for strikes within Russia. The longest-range variant of the weapon can hit targets out to 190 miles.
“It will inspire Ukrainians and our army,” Cherniev said. Russian airfields and military depots will be top of Kyiv’s target list if American restrictions on ATACMS use are indeed lifted, he added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists at a Wednesday briefing prior to Blinken’s remarks that he expected the U.S. to give its permission.
“Most likely, of course, all these decisions have already been made,” he said, as quoted by the state-run Tass agency.
ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
