The enormous death toll – making the floods surely Spain's worst natural disaster in living memory – has raised questions about how something like this could happen in a European Union country with excellent public safety.

As rescuers continued to pull bodies from the mud and rubble on Thursday, anger also grew among families and friends mourning their lost loved ones and among many thousands more whose livelihoods were destroyed by the flooding. The streets were full of people searching for basic supplies in broken-down cars and the roads were impassable due to the mud and debris.

The Valencian regional government has come under criticism for not broadcasting flood warnings on mobile phones until 8pm on Tuesday, when flooding had already begun in some places and long after the national weather agency had issued a red alert for heavy rain.

Valencia regional president Carlos Mazón of the conservative Popular Party defended his government's handling of the crisis, saying “all our supervisors followed standard protocol” coordinated by Spain's central government.

Spain's Interior Ministry said in a statement that regional administrations were responsible for sending alerts to warn the population of possible floods and other natural disasters.

Mazón is also criticized for his announcement on Tuesday at 1 p.m. that the storm front would “lose strength” by 6 p.m. The opposite happened.

The scale and violence of the extreme weather event was shocking and extremely difficult for any government to prepare for and predict. But Valencia, on Spain's Mediterranean coast, has a history of fall storms that produce flooding, although on a smaller scale than this monster storm.