With Siobhan RobbinsEuropean correspondent

Isabel took out the only belongings she had left in the world from the dirty bags covered in mud.

Dirty clothes and broken furniture were among the remains of the flood.

She bought some nail polish.

“What a disaster,” he said.

During Tuesday’s flash flood, the river near his home filled with water until it broke through the front door and burst out of the wall.

His family’s three-generation home didn’t stand a chance.

“I didn’t have time to buy anything, not even a backpack with a laptop, clothes, nothing,” he said.

His brother Angel showed us around the wreckage.

The lights are gone, the windows and some walls are also gone.

The loss is monumental.

He said the water rose to the ceiling and the level continued to rise.

“There was so much water and it was coming so hard it was scary. The noise it made was incredible,” Angel told me.

The flood was so strong that it washed away the adjacent bridge.

The family survived because they lifted themselves to higher ground when the waters began to rise; They did not wait for the official warning.

In the living room, Angel’s sister Amparo tried to find everything that could be salvaged.

The flood took away the house and precious memories of parents who are no longer here.

“There are things from my mother,” she said through tears after rummaging through the broken plates.

“I didn’t take them to my house where I lived and I thought they were all lost, but at least some of them are there.”

In every room, friends and volunteers have tried to clean up the mess, but the sense of loss and grief is overwhelming.

Isabel and her family are now homeless and have no idea how long it will last.

“I came home with my dogs, they wanted to go in, but we can’t go home,” he said.

This is a story of loss, a snapshot of pain in a country where millions mourn.