Carlos Mazón resists calls to step down, saying floods that killed 216 in his area were unprecedented and ‘apocalyptic’

The regional president of Valencia, who is under mounting pressure over his handling of the catastrophic floods that killed 216 people in the area, has conceded mistakes were made but refused to step down, claiming the unprecedented and “apocalyptic” scale of the disaster simply overwhelmed the system.

A total of 224 people lost their lives – all but eight of them in Valencia – when torrential rains and floods hit eastern, central and southern parts of Spain on Tuesday 29 October, drowning people in their homes and cars and sending torrents of water through cities, towns and villages.