Spain's flood survivors strive to save their photos and memories

A mud-covered frame holding a wet, disintegrating photo was one of the most precious things that Ana Piedra Carbonell managed to salvage when floodwaters swept away her mother's house in the eastern Spanish town of Algemesi.

The picture showing Carbonell with her mother, her late father and her sister from decades back was the only family photo in the house to survive the deluge, the worst floods in Spain's modern history.

Given the state of the print, there is a risk that memento could also disappear. So she joined scores of survivors turning up to see if experts from a project run by the University of Valencia could do anything to save their memories.

"It's the only keepsake my mother can have because my father passed away when he was 36, and my mother is now 74," said Carbonell, at one of the collection points set up by the new "Save the Pictures" scheme.

"Furniture and cars can be replaced... (Pictures) are material things but they reach an incalculable sentimental level," the 44-year-old added.

The scheme aims to restore and safeguard damaged photographic heritage and return it to flood-hit communities.

"My father was very fond of photography, so I also have many photos of myself as a child. So it's a lot."