The death toll from devastating flash floods in eastern Spain climbed to 158 on Thursday, with rescue teams still searching for those missing in what could become Europe's worst storm-related disaster in over five decades.

"There's a total of 158 people to which must be added dozens and dozens of missing," Angel Victor Torres, minister in charge of cooperation with Spain's regions, told a press conference.

A year's worth of rain fell in eight hours in parts of the Valencia region on Tuesday.

The tragedy is already Spain's worst flood-related disaster in modern history, and meteorologists say human-driven climate change is making such extreme weather events more frequent and destructive.

In 2021, at least 185 people died in heavy flooding in Germany. Prior to that, 209 people died in Romania in 1970 and floods in Portugal in 1967 killed nearly 500 people.