Floods trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain on Sunday as torrential rain drenched part of the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza.
National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert for heavy rain in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180 millimetres of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro river delta.
Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles.
Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with “entrapments inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors”.
The mayor of the town of Santa Barbara, Josep Lluis Gimeno, told regional television station 3Cat the situation was “very tense” and “generates panic in the population” as the night brought heavier rain.
Local streams and ravines “are completely overflowing and have invaded the entire centre of the town, dragging everything there is, containers and cars”, he said.
Catalonia’s civil protection service sent a telephone alert urging residents in the Montsia region to avoid travelling and approaching waterways.
Local streams and ravines “are completely overflowing and have invaded the entire centre of the town, dragging everything there is, containers and cars”, he said.
Catalonia’s civil protection service sent a telephone alert urging residents in the Montsia region to avoid travelling and approaching waterways.
The regional government’s leader Salvador Illa joined the call on social media, pleading with citizens “for maximum precaution”.
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Catalan emergency services published data on the calls they had received showing a sharp spike from 5:00 pm (1500 GMT), with 142 cases generated.
Rail and road travel disruption in Catalonia started to be reported as water accumulated on tracks and motorways.
All trains travelling 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.
Ibiza ‘gradually recovering’
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 declared on Friday.
But some municipalities devastated by last year’s disaster cancelled school and outdoor activities planned for Monday 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.
Ibiza airport was “gradually recovering” after briefly halting operations on Saturday, with four flights cancelled, eight diverted and others delayed in the morning, operator Aena said.
The Spanish army’s emergencies unit was working in Ibiza on Sunday to clear roads and pump water from flooded buildings as the storm faded there.
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.
