Málaga evacuates thousands as Spain issues more flood alerts
Thousands of people in the Costa del Sol region of southern Spain have been forced to evacuate their homes due to heavy rainfall and severe flooding.
Spain’s national weather agency, Aemet, has issued the highest alert for both Malaga and the northeastern Catalonia region, with intense rain expected to persist until Friday.
The Malaga area, including popular tourist destinations like Marbella, Velez, and Estepona, is set to experience the worst of the extreme weather event, known as a “Dana.”
Parts of eastern Valencia are also under the highest alert, just weeks after the region was hit by flash floods that claimed over 220 lives.
Other areas across Spain are preparing for additional heavy rainfall and low temperatures.
Forecasters predict that up to 180mm of rain could fall in Catalonia in just 12 hours, with thunderstorms expected along the coast near Tarragona.
In response, all schools in the southern province of Málaga have been closed, and many supermarkets have shuttered their doors.
Social media footage has shown the usually bustling streets of the city deserted, as floodwaters inundated the area.
Around 3,000 people living near the Guadalhorce River have been told to leave their homes, the Regional Government of Andalusia has said.
Regional government’s Minister of the Presidency Antonio Sanz said: “We have not evacuated entire towns, but rather specific areas linked to the riverbank.
“This decision has been communicated to the government of Spain to receive collaboration from the state security forces and bodies.”
The severe weather alert in Málaga has also led to the opening tie of the Billie Jean King Cup between Spain and Poland being postponed, the International Tennis Federation said.
The two nations were set to play in Malaga on Wednesday.
Spain’s meteorological agency Aemet has placed parts of the Andalusia region and the Balearic Islands on orange alert from now until Thursday.
Aemet warns of rainfall and storms that could be “very strong to torrential”.
In other parts of Spain, precautions are being taken – with eastern and southern Mediterranean areas the most vulnerable.
That orange alert is the second highest and it signals a significant meteorological event “with a degree of danger for normal activities”.
In Valencia, school classes and sports activities were suspended in some areas and sandbags were piled up to protect the center of the town of Aldaia.
However, this second Dana weather system is not expected to be as dramatic as the red alert on 29 October, when the Valencia region in particular suffered an unprecedented loss of lives and material damage.
Elsewhere, rescue teams searching for the bodies of two young brothers who were swept away in the Valencia floods two weeks ago said their bodies had been found.
Izan Matías, 5, and Rubén Matías, 3, were pulled from their father Victor Matías’s arms when the torrent ripped through their home in Valencia on the evening of 29 October.
Their aunt Barabara Sastre confirmed to the BBC the boys had been found. Their bodies were recovered in different locations.
“My little angels, we have finally found you” one family friend, David Garcia, wrote online. “Two stars shine brighter in the sky.”
Yesterday, search teams had focused on part of the River Pollo about 6km (3.7km) from the family home.
The boys’ uncle Iván had told the BBC he was hugely grateful for all the support they had received and hoped his nephews would be found.
Volunteers from the Canary Islands and other parts of Spain had joined recovery specialists from Mexico, who normally work in the aftermath of earthquakes.
On Monday, the family dog was found dead in a garage in the town of Paiporta, more than 12km (7.4 miles) from their house in La Curra, a neighborhood of Mas del Jutge.
Dana weather systems are formed when an area of low pressure gets “cut off” from the main flow of the jet stream.
This means that instead of moving through a region relatively quickly, they get blocked over the same area leading to persistent rainfall for several days.
Colder air high in the atmosphere meets warmer air flowing in from the Mediterranean which intensifies the storm.
On the first day of the COP29 climate summit on Monday, the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation Celeste Saulo said the recent floods in Spain were a strong message to the world.
“The incredible amount of rain in Spain was a wake-up call (about) how much more water a warmer atmosphere can hold,” she said.
