Irene Cuevas says she has the roar of the waves produced by a flash flood burned into her memory. The resident of Chiva spent a night of terror when the gorge of her village in eastern Spain quickly filled with rushing water and unleashed a wave of death and destruction. She says that it was terrifying to hear the crashing waves just below her first-floor balcony during that fateful night. Chiva has so far accounted for seven of the over 200 dead from Spain's worst natural disaster in living memory.
