Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza.
Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles.
National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta.
Photo: Reuters
Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.”
Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis Gimeno told regional television station 3Cat that the situation was “very tense” as the night brought heavier deluges.
Local streams and ravines “are completely overflowing and have invaded the entire center of the town, dragging everything there is, containers and cars,” he said.
Godall Mayor Alexis Albiol spoke of “a moment of chaos,” telling 3Cat: “All the cars that were in the streets near the ravine were swept away and are distributed throughout the village.”
“I don’t believe anyone in the village has seen the amount of water that has fallen in such a short time,” Albiol said.
A weather station in nearby Mas de Barberans recorded almost 272mm of rainfall over the past weekend, regional weather monitor Meteocat said.
There were nonetheless no reports of people hurt or missing.
All trains traveling through the Mediterranean corridor from Barcelona and Valencia, Spain’s second and third-largest cities respectively, were suspended until further notice, national railway company Renfe announced.
Local media published footage of emergency services rescuing drivers who were trapped on a flooded motorway outside the town of Amposta.
Catalan emergency services published data on the calls they had received showing a sharp spike from 5pm, with 998 cases generated.
Catalonia’s civil protection service extended its mass telephone alert, urging residents to avoid traveling and approaching waterways, to an area encompassing about 100km on and near the coast.
The downpours came after the eastern Valencia region, which suffered Spain’s deadliest floods in decades last year, emerged relatively unscathed from another red alert that started on Friday last week, but some municipalities devastated by last year’s disaster canceled school and outdoor activities planned for yesterday due to a fresh rain warning.
Flooding struck the popular holiday island of Ibiza on Saturday for the second time in two weeks as the storm moved east and north into the Mediterranean after drenching southeastern Spain.
Because a hotter atmosphere holds more water that evaporates from a rapidly warming Mediterranean Sea, climate change increases the risk and intensity of flooding from extreme rainfall in the region.
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