Torrential rains fall on Malaga and southern Spain

Thousands of people evacuated preventively, train lines suspended, streets submerged: new torrential rains fell on the south and east of Spain on Wednesday, two weeks after the deadly floods which hit the Valencia region .

The national meteorological agency (Aemet) has issued a red alert, the maximum level, for the provinces of Malaga (Andalusia, south) and Tarragona (Catalonia, northeast), due to this new “cold drop”, an isolated high altitude depression quite common in autumn on the Spanish Mediterranean coast.

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Malaga paralyzed

“Today, Malaga is paralyzed,” declared the president of the Andalusia region Juan Manuel Moreno, during a trip to Seville. “Prevention is better than cure, we saw it in Valencia”, the priority being to “minimize the impact in terms of loss of human lives”, insisted the president of the region, two weeks after the disaster which caused at least 223 dead in the Valencia region.

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In Malaga, where several roads were flooded, the metro was closed, the train line to Madrid was suspended and flights were diverted. The municipality evacuated nearly three thousand people “preventatively”.

“Everything is going well since we were warned last night,” Ida Maria Ledesma Martin, a resident of Campanillas, near Malaga, explained to AFP: “This morning, around 10 a.m., police officers went through the streets to warn the world, the deployment is very good and I think is not exaggerated at all.

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Makeshift barricades

In areas placed on red alert, located on the coast, nearly 120 to 180 liters of precipitation per square meter (120 to 180 millimeters) could accumulate over the coming hours, according to Aemet. The precipitation will last until Thursday.

Heavy rain, although less heavy, is also expected in the evening in the Valencia region, hit by the deadly floods of October 29, with the particular fear of seeing the sewers still blocked by mud overflow.

In the municipality of Paiporta, considered the epicenter of the disaster two weeks ago, residents set up makeshift barricades with earth bags in front of house doors.

These new rains have affected search operations for the 17 people still missing, concentrated mainly around waterways and on the coast, at river mouths.

“Search at sea was compromised due to the maritime storm,” Rosa Tourís, spokesperson for Cecopi, Valencia’s emergency committee, told the press. “After this meteorological episode, the tides will be evaluated again to determine the search areas,” she added.

As a precaution, several municipalities in the region have asked the thousands of volunteers who come every day to help residents clear the streets not to go to the disaster areas on Wednesday.

In Andalusia and Catalonia, where the provinces placed on red alert are located (Malaga and Tarragona), the authorities for their part anticipated the possible consequences of heavy rains by sending alert messages to mobile phones, the reception of which causes a loud beep.

Report from BJK Cup

The authorities in Valencia were strongly criticized for sending this warning message late on October 29.

Indignation against the authorities, accused of having poorly assessed the risks and of having delayed too long in the deployment of relief, gave rise to massive demonstrations on Saturday, the largest of which brought together 130,000 people in the city from Valencia.

The red alert issued by Aemet, corresponding to weather phenomena of “exceptional intensity” presenting “a very high level of risk for the population”, also led the authorities to suspend classes on Wednesday in part of Catalonia and in Andalusian cities like Granada and Malaga.

In this city, bad weather also led to the postponement to Friday of a match between Spain and Poland as part of the Billie Jean King Cup in women's tennis, which was to be played on Wednesday afternoon.

In the Valencia region, this new cold drop caused waves of more than four meters on the coast, and convinced the authorities to close certain roads and train lines. Maritime traffic was also suspended in the ports of Valencia and Sagunto.