Helicopters winched residents from rooftops in eastern Spain on Monday as floods and storms linked to Storm Adam killed at least three people and cut off towns along the Mediterranean coast, Reuters reported from Els Poblets.
Members of the Military Emergencies Unit found the body of a woman in the town of Oliva during rescue operations on Monday, regional broadcaster A Punt reported, bringing the confirmed toll to three. Two other women died over the weekend: one whose body washed up on a beach in Sagunto, in the Valencia region, and another who was swept away by floodwaters in Cabrera de Mar, near Barcelona. Shelter-in-place orders remained in force for more than 80,000 residents.
Spain's national weather agency AEMET recorded exceptional rainfall: Pego, in Alicante province, received 632 millimetres, about 25 inches, in 36 hours, while several locations in southern Valencia and northern Alicante exceeded 500 millimetres over the same period. Rivers burst their banks and streets turned into torrents.
In Els Poblets, northeast of Alicante, cars and vans were piled on top of one another by the force of the water. "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," local chef Javier Fornez, 49, told Reuters.
The scenes revived memories of the catastrophic flooding that killed more than 230 people in the Valencia region two years ago. Meteorologists say human-driven climate change is making such extreme rainfall events more frequent and destructive.
