Mixed messages and confusion cost lives, dozens of local residents and experts say. More than 220 people died and nearly 80 are still missing.

As much as a foot of rain fell in mere hours in and around the city of Valencia, flooding homes and sweeping away cars.

Carlos Martinez, another Paiporta resident, told local television the flood alert came when he was stranded in a tree "seeing bodies floating past." Dozens of inhabitants of flooded communities told Reuters that by the time they received the regional government's alert,

Tens of thousands of people marched Saturday in Valencia and other Spanish cities to voice their anger at the authorities' handling of deadly floods.

VALENCIA (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia on Saturday over regional authorities' handling of devastating floods that killed more than 220 people in one of Europe's worst natural disasters for decades.