A teacher who moved from Kent to Spain has described her dogs’ “impossible” escape from her home following the country's worst flooding disaster this century.

Annabelle Reece, formerly of Ashford, says she has been forced to hide in her car as “hailstones the size of fists” continue to fall during the ongoing crisis in Valencia.

The flooding began on Tuesday, October 29 following a period of intense rainfall in the region.

Emergency workers in Valencia are continuing to search through underground garages, car parks and tunnels in the hope of finding survivors or recovering bodies.

Ms Reece says deadly floods have swept through her home and destroyed everything on the ground floor.

It has left a pile of rubble “a metre high” in her Godelleta home, according to the 50-year-old.

For the past week, Ms Reece says she has also had no running water and has been reliant on neighbours and friends for food and washing facilities.

A teacher at Colegio Internacional Levante in Chiva, she says she was desperate to get home after work to her two 10-month-old golden retriever puppies when the worst of the floods struck.

“I started driving home after work. I was driving over the mountain, which was difficult as it was collapsing,” she said.

“What should have been a road was an ocean.

“I stayed in my car for four hours while hailstones the size of fists fell on the car.

“The rain stopped at about one o’clock in the morning and I went to go home.

“I decided to try some other ways to get to another place where there should be access – there’s a bridge that had collapsed.

“I had to abandon my car and walk the rest of the way and wade through a river to get home.”

When she got to her front door she could not open it because of furniture and mud blocking the entrance, but was relieved to see her dogs had climbed to safety on her home’s first floor.

She added: “The dogs were at the window at the top.

“We’ve got those baby gates to stop them going upstairs and honestly it’s impossible for them to get up there, but they got up there. The dogs have been tied up for six days as we can’t let them run free as the mud is dangerous.”

She says there has been an outpouring of support from volunteers in the area, who have helped to clear away the thick layers of mud and debris which still cover houses, streets and roads.

But Ms Reece, who moved to Spain 23 years ago, acknowledges what was previously on the ground floor of her home is now lost due to the floods.

She also believes there has been a lack of support from the government, adding supermarkets are now completely empty.

“Everything on the ground floor is damaged really. You clean something and then you just realise that it’s full of mud and not salvageable,” she said.

“We’ve got a swimming pool, but it is full of mud and we’re getting advice not to touch the mud as people are getting infected and ill.”

She continued: “We’ve had friends, family, people that we know, people that we don’t know coming to help.

“We don’t have any running water but the neighbours have water, so we’ve been showering there.

“We’ve got family who’ve managed to get to us every day to bring us food."

The Valencia regional government has been heavily criticised for not sending flood warnings to mobile phones until 8pm on Tuesday, when flooding had already begun in some areas.

Meanwhile, footage online shows the king and queen of Spain being hit with mud by angry protesters as they walked through the flood-hit town of Paiporta on Sunday, with objects also thrown at Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.