By Armando Franca and Harold Heckle
The Associated Press via The Virginian-Pilot
FUNCHAL, Madeira Islands — Rescue workers in Madeira dug through heaps of mud, boulders and debris Sunday, searching for victims buried by floods and mudslides that have killed at least 42 people on the Portuguese island.
Local authorities directed residents looking for missing loved ones to the resort’s international airport, where a makeshift morgue has been set up.
Social services spokesman Francisco Jardim Ramos said not all the bodies had been identified. The center is equipped with psychiatric, psychological and social counseling services, he said.
More than 120 other people were injured and an unknown number were missing, possibly swept away or smothered, authorities said. They said the death toll still could rise. Of 248 people who were forced to flee their homes for temporary shelters, 85 have been allowed to return home, Ramos said.
Late Sunday, a spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office said a British national had died but declined to give further details. The Foreign Office also said a small number of Britons had been hospitalized on Madeira.
The worst storm to hit Madeira since 1993 lashed the south of the island, including the capital, Funchal, on Saturday, turning some streets into torrents of mud, water and rolling debris.
“We heard a very loud noise, like rolling thunder, the ground shook and then we realized it was water coming down,” said Simon Burgbage, of Britain.
Madeira is the main island, with a population of around 250,000, of a Portuguese chain of islands of the same name in the Atlantic Ocean just over 300 miles off the west coast of Africa.
The flash floods were so powerful they carved paths down mountains and ripped through the city . Residents caught in the torrent clung to railings to avoid being swept away. Cars were tossed about by the force of the water; the battered shells of overturned vehicles littered the streets.
“It was horrible, there were cars on rooftops; there were vans and trucks that had fallen and been totally crushed,” said German tourist Andreas Hoisser.
The raging water swept a fire truck downstream, slamming it into a tree.
Funchal residents and visitors must now contend with a lack of fresh water until destroyed infrastructure is repaired, the head of water services said.
The death toll “will likely increase, given the circumstances of this flood,” Ramos said, adding there were “great difficulties” with communications on the island since phone lines were ripped out by the deluge.
More than 120 other people were injured and an unknown number were missing, possibly swept away or smothered. Some who had been evacuated were allowed to return home.
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