Spain’s King Felipe VI and top government officials were pelted with mud by a crowd of angry survivors of the recent flooding during the first visit by the country’s leaders to the centre of the suffering.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was evacuated from the scene, according to Spanish broadcaster RTVE, when the official contingent started to walk the mud-covered streets of Paiporta.
The town on the outskirts of Valencia was one of the hardest-hit areas where more than 60 people died and thousands of lives were shattered.
“Get out! Get out!” and “Killers!” the crowd shouted among other insults.
Queen Letizia and regional Valencia president Carlo Mazon were also in the contingent.
After being forced to seek protection, the king remained calm and made several efforts to speak to individual residents.
One person appeared to have wept on his shoulder, and he shook a man’s hand.
The queen, with small dollops of mud on her hands and arms, also spoke to some women.
“We don’t have any water,” one told her.
It was an unprecedented incident for a royal house that takes great care to craft an image of a monarch who is liked by the nation.
More than 200 people have died following Tuesday’s floods and thousands have had their homes destroyed by the wall of water and mud. At least 60 of the dead were in Paiporta.
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.
And more anger has been fuelled by the inability of officials to respond quickly in the aftermath.
“We have lost everything!” someone shouted.
Felipe insisted on trying to speak with people as he continued his visit.
He spoke to several people, patting two young men on their backs and sharing a quick embrace, with mud stains on his black raincoat.
But after approximately half an hour of tension, the monarch and the rest of the deletation got into official cars and left with a mounted police escort.
One woman smacked an official car with an umbrella, and another kicked it, before it sped off.
RTVE reported that the barrage aimed at the royals included a few rocks and other hard objects were tossed and that two bodyguards were treated for injuries, and the monarchs and officials called off another stop on Sunday at a second hard-hit village, Chiva, about half an hour to the east of Valencia city.
Mr Sanchez said recovery efforts will not be derailed by the incident.
“I want to express all my government’s solidarity and its acknowledgement of the anguish, suffering, uncertainty and the needs of the residents of Paiporta and the region of Valencia,” Mr Sanchez said, while adding that he believes the majority of people “reject the types of violence that unfortunately we saw today”.
The king later told regional authorities at the command post of emergency response efforts that they had to give “hope to those affected by the flood and attend to their needs, guaranteeing that the state is there for them”.
The mud-slinging scene occurred as thousands more Spanish soldiers, national police officers, and Civil Guard gendarmes arrived, or are set to arrive, at the disaster sites.
