A few subway lines in Madrid and high-speed train connections with southern cities were closed on Monday morning and two men were missing after torrential rain hit central Spain.
Emergency services were involved in almost 1,200 incidents in the region overnight and firefighters and police were seeking two missing men in the rural area of Aldea del Fresno, southwest of Madrid, said Javier Chivite, the spokesperson of the emergency services in the region.
“Two people are missing, a father and his son, they were in a vehicle that got in an avalanche caused by the spate of the Alberche river,” Chivite said. “We hope this will have a positive outcome.”
Several roads in the Madrid region were closed as half a dozen bridges were torn down by water overflowing the riverbanks.
The sudden torrential rain that hit the country transformed streets into rivers in Madrid, Castile, Catalonia and Valencia regions. Hail also fell in many areas.
The heavy rainfall was waning on Monday morning, though. Rain continued in most of the country, but the National Weather Agency on Monday lowered the alert level to yellow from orange and red on Sunday.
Several subway lines were closed in the centre of Madrid on Monday morning. Some high-speed connections between Madrid and Andalusia region, in southern Spain, resumed later on Monday, but trains were operating at lower-than-normal speeds.
Madrid’s mayor on Sunday advised all residents to stay at home as the capital braced itself for torrential rain and storms.
“Due to the exceptional and abnormal situation, in which rainfall records will be broken, I ask the people of Madrid to stay at home today,” Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
National weather agency AEMET issued a maximum red alert, which means possible extreme danger, for Sunday in the Madrid region, Toledo province, and the city of Cadiz.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP)