Torrential rain across eastern Spain has triggered severe flooding, forced widespread evacuations and placed tens of thousands of residents under shelter-in-place orders, authorities confirmed on Monday.
The downpour caused by Storm Adam, which began on Saturday, dumped up to 700 litres of rain per square metre within 24 hours in parts of the Valencia region. Floodwaters have isolated several Mediterranean coastal towns, while swollen rivers burst their banks and turned city streets into raging torrents, reports Al Jazeera.
The scenes have brought back memories of the disaster two years ago, when catastrophic flooding claimed more than 230 lives across the Valencia region.
Authorities have confirmed four deaths linked to the storm. Two people died in the coastal resort town of Oliva, another was killed at a beach in Sagunto, and a fourth victim drowned after falling into a swollen stream in Catalonia.
Emergency restrictions were introduced across the affected areas. On Monday morning, around 800,000 residents were under shelter-in-place orders. By late afternoon, the figure had fallen to 87,000 across eight municipalities.
According to government representative Pilar Bernabe, security forces carried out more than 400 rescues in the Valencia region. Some stranded residents were winched to safety from rooftops as evacuations continued.
The severe weather system also battered the Balearic Islands and Catalonia, prompting authorities to order residents in around 100 municipalities to remain indoors for several hours on Monday. Most of the restrictions were lifted by early afternoon as weather conditions improved, according to the regional government.
In Els Poblets, northeast of Alicante, floodwaters piled cars and vans on top of one another as residents tried to salvage belongings from their inundated homes.
Local resident Javier Fornez described the devastation, saying: “The village, well, it’s a disaster. Some people have lost everything all over again, just like in 2007, when exactly the same thing happened”.
More than 2,000 people were evacuated across the affected areas, most of them from Oliva. The Civil Guard also carried out nearly 100 rescues across Valencia and Alicante on Monday.
The flooding severely disrupted transport and access to several towns. Enrique Moll, the mayor of Pego, told public regional broadcaster A Punt radio on Monday that all routes into the town were blocked and several residents were still waiting to be evacuated by helicopter from their rooftops.
Meanwhile, Salvador Llopis, the deputy mayor of Oliva, told state broadcaster TVE on Monday that emergency services were rescuing trapped residents, particularly elderly people stranded inside their homes with floodwater reaching waist height.
The disaster comes amid unprecedented climatic extremes in Spain. The national weather agency AEMET announced on Friday that mainland Spain had recorded its hottest September on record last month, following its warmest summer between June and August.
