Spain battered by weekend storms and floods and there’s more to come

Even as Alicante and Valencia were braced for torrential rain, a clean-up operation was underway in Andalusia after a weekend of stormy weather caused flooding, blocked roads and closed schools.

The province of Malaga had been braced for severe weather and suffered thunder storms and dramatic images capture the moment an apartment building in Malaga was struck by lightning. 

Brutal rayo impactando sobre la azotea de uno de los bloques situado cerca de la comisaría en #Málaga capital. Se desconoce el autor del vídeo.

CC: @ecazatormentas @AEMET_Esp @AEMET_SINOBAS @severeweatherEU @StormchaserUKEU @objtormentas @StormHour @RAM_meteo pic.twitter.com/8b5J2SpxtM

— Storm Málaga (@Storm_Malaga) November 18, 2018

Meanwhile along the coast in Marbella, lightning strike caused a fire to break out at a hotel forcing evacuation of staff and guests.

Images show towns along the Costa del Sol being lashed by high winds, huge waves and torrential rain. In many places schools remained closed on Monday and several roads were blocked due to flooding. This is the view of a motorway blocked in Huelva by flood water:

This footage from emergency services in Estepona shows the fierce wind:

 

 

 

 

Further north in Galicia, a 75-year-old woman drowned as flood water engulfed her home in Lugo, in the northwestern region on Sunday afternoon. 

In the Canary Islands, storms caused high seas forcing several buildings to be evacuated after they were battered by giant waves.

Residents were forced to evacuate apartments in Garachico in Tenerife after 40ft waves smashed windows and ripped off balconies on the lower two floors of a building on the sea front.

On Monday, 17 provinces were issued with weather alerts by Spain’s Meteorological agency, AEMET.

Valencia and Alicante were issued with the most extreme red alert in the expectation of torrential rain and high flood risk and schools across both provinces were closed.

The lesser orange alerts – representing significant risk -  were issued for the Balearic Islands for rain, which the lower risk yellow alerts were put in place for  Ávila, Tarragona, Madrid and Castellón provinces.