At least two people are dead and one is missing after torrential rain triggered catastrophic flooding across Catalonia in northeastern Spain. A man was killed in Tordera when a wall collapsed at a campsite, a second person was found dead in a flooded garage in Montornès del Vallès, and one person remains missing in Pineda de Mar.
The rainfall totals are historic. Vilassar de Mar recorded 288 litres per square metre — the highest single-event total in the nearly 40 years of Meteocat's climate records — while Granollers saw 247.9 and Barcelona's Can Bruixa station logged 213, the city's wettest day in at least two decades. One Barcelona neighbourhood saw 3.4 litres per square metre fall in a single minute. "This episode goes down in the history of Meteocat's climate records," said Meteocat director Sarai Sarroca.
Emergency services were stretched to the limit: Catalan firefighters carried out more than 2,440 operations including 226 rescues, the 112 emergency line received over 5,000 calls, and 11 people were hospitalized, none with serious injuries. It was the region's second red weather alert in 48 hours.
The disruption rippled across the region — more than half of the Rodalies commuter rail network went down with bus replacements running, flights at Barcelona airport were cancelled or delayed, Verdi's "Aida" at the Liceu opera house was called off, and an 18-kilometre traffic jam formed on the C-58 motorway.
