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A 102-year-old woman died and 90 people had to be rescued on Friday in Madrigueras, in the province of Albacete, after flash flooding swamped the entire town.
According to a statement from the regional government, the municipality recorded 142 litres of rain per square metre, a level that forced the deployment of a large emergency operation. The regional authorities also activated the Adverse Meteorological Risk Plan (METEOCAM) at operational level 1.
In the house where the victim was found, the water reached a height of one metre. During the afternoon and the early part of the night, emergency services carried out around 90 rescues, mostly of people in homes affected by the build-up of water. The regional government said it had received numerous calls from residents who “were frightened and did not know how to act”.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his support on X. “All my love to the relatives of the woman who has died as a result of the flooding, and all our support and solidarity to the affected residents,” he wrote. The president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, is in Madrigueras on Saturday, where the Civil Guard is working on clean-up operations.
Storms over the weekend
Heavy rain fell during the night and on Friday morning in Tarragona and Castellón, especially in the Lower Ebro area, where most of the problems were concentrated. On Friday afternoon, orange alerts were in place in Tarragona, the Valencia region and the Balearic Islands, and also in the Region of Murcia and in the provinces of Almería, Granada and Albacete, for storms that could be strong and bring hail. The unsettled weather is spreading to more areas of the peninsula and will continue throughout the weekend.
Saturday may start with further heavy rain along the Tarragona coast, where a red alert has already been issued for torrential rain, as well as in Extremadura, Salamanca, the Central System and Aragon. From midday, and especially in the afternoon, showers and thunderstorms could reach virtually any part of the peninsula.
They will again be intense and accompanied by hail in some places, namely the Iberian System, the south-eastern sierras, the Pyrenees, the north-western quadrant, the Balearic Islands and the Mediterranean coast. They will be less likely in western Galicia and in the Canary Islands. Temperatures will rise in Galicia, Aragon, Navarre, the Basque Country and the Canary Islands, fall in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and inland Spain, and remain unchanged elsewhere.
On Sunday, the unsettled conditions will continue, with widespread rain and thunderstorms and the possible formation of a DANA, a slow-moving high-altitude low that can bring torrential rain over the western half of mainland Spain. This does not mean that the rainfall will be heavier than in recent hours in Tarragona or Castellón, but it does make it more likely that these conditions will be repeated or spread to other areas. Only along the Galician coast are largely clear or slightly cloudy skies expected.
During the early hours, showers and storms could be heavy along the Cantabrian coast, in the Balearic Islands and in Catalonia. Later, locally heavy showers will become widespread across much of central and northern Spain, and will be less likely in the southern third. The Canary Islands will remain largely unaffected. Temperatures will change little compared with Saturday, with the weekend still feeling warm.