‘Murderers, murderers!’: Mud thrown at Spain king, queen during visit to flood-hit Valencia suburb

Locals pelted stones at Spain's royals and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Sunday with mud. The protesters cried: "Murderers, murderers!", “assassins”. The demonstration was held during the visit by Spanish King Felipe, Queen Letizia, and the Prime Minister to the Valencia suburb – which is among the areas highly affected by the deadly floods last week.

The extraordinary scenes unfolded on Sunday as they showed the depth of the anger in the country over the response to the nation's worst such disaster in decades, with the toll ever rising and hopes for finding survivors ebbing five days on.

Spain is a parliamentary monarchy where the king is head of state.

According to news agency AFP, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia were hit in the face and clothes with mud as they tried to calm the angry crowd. The king and queen arrived just after midday at a crisis centre in Paiporta, ground zero for a disaster Sanchez called the second deadliest flood in Europe this century.

One protester shouted "you have arrived four days late", BBC reported.

Security guards were soon called to stand between the royals and the rest of the delegation and the angry crowd, whose ire seemed most directed at Sanchez and Valencia region head Carlos Mazon.

While Sanchez and the politicians quickly left, the king and queen spent an hour trying to calm tempers before leaving themselves. Later, public television said their visit to the flood-hit region had been suspended.

An image showed the king with what appears to be objects and mud flying through the air behind him.

Why was the crowd angry?

The locals vented pent-up anger over what has been widely perceived by local residents as tardy alerts from the authorities about the dangers of last week's flooding and then a late response by the emergency services when disaster struck, Reuters reported.

"It was known and nobody did anything to avoid it," a young man told the king, who insisted on staying to talk to the people despite the turmoil, while the prime minister had quickly withdrawn.

Following the attack, officials had to cut short their visit to the town worst hit by the floods which have killed more than 200.

Heavy rains that began on Monday caused floods that destroyed bridges and covered towns with mud, cutting off communities and leaving them without water, food or electricity.

Juan Bordera, a member of the Valencian parliament, says King Felipe's visit to flood-struck Valencia was "a very bad decision". Authorities “didn’t listen to any warnings,” Bordera was quoted by BBC as saying. He said the response of the national government is “also questionable”.

“It’s logical that the people are angry, it’s logical that the people didn’t understand why this visit is so urgent,” he adds.