A 35-year-old woman died after torrential rain swept her away while she tried to cross a river with her children in Catalonia, authorities said, raising Spain’s death toll from two weeks of severe rain and flooding to five.
The woman was carried away last night in Cabrera de Mar, around 27km north of Barcelona. She had been attempting to cross the river with her children as intense rainfall caused water levels to rise rapidly.
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Óscar Fernández, the mayor of Cabrera de Mar, said the woman had attended a basketball game where spectators were told to remain inside the municipal facility because of the dangerous conditions outside.
Authorities closed roads and cut back train services across Catalonia, urging people to avoid unnecessary travel and stay away from rivers, streams and other waterways.
Heavy rain impacted roads in Cádiz, Spain
Scientists say flooding is occurring more often across Europe as a warming atmosphere retains greater amounts of moisture, increasing the potential for intense rainfall.
Spain has been among the countries hit hardest by the recent storms.
Torrential rain has also struck Valencia and Alicante in the southeast, as well as Almeria in the south, flooding homes, sweeping away vehicles and forcing the closure of roads.
“It started raining, it was fast. This stream carried a lot of water and it filled up really fast. The problem was that there were cars in the middle of the highway. It washed them away,” Beatriz Mendoza, who owns a commercial greenhouse in Almeria that was destroyed by the rain, told Canalsur, a local television station.
Heavy rainfall in the Campo de Gibraltar region caused flooding in Algeciras
In August, torrential rain triggered flooding and a landslide near Pontevedra in rural northwestern Spain, killing two elderly women. At the time, seven regions were placed on yellow alert for storms and heavy rain.
The floods came after weeks of record-breaking temperatures that fueled a series of devastating wildfires.
