Parts of southern Spain and Portugal faced severe disruption as torrential rains, floods and landslides from Storm Leonardo battered the Iberian Peninsula.
Leonardo is the seventh storm to hit the region this year; last week storms in Portugal killed five people, injured hundreds and left tens of thousands without power. Scientists say human-driven climate change is making floods and other extreme weather events in Europe more frequent, intense and prolonged. Spain’s Valencia region suffered catastrophic flash floods in October 2024 that killed 237 people.
In Spain’s Malaga province a woman was swept away by the Turvilla River while trying to save her dog; firefighters recovered the dog but the woman remained missing, authorities said. Some areas of Andalusia received more than 40 centimetres (15 inches) of rain in a single day — roughly several months’ worth for the region. The rains, floods and landslides forced nearly 4,000 people to evacuate and paralysed dozens of roads and rail lines. Andalusia’s president, Juan Manuel Moreno, said the mountain village of Grazalema received in 16 hours the same amount of rain Madrid would see in a year. Two nearby reservoirs under threat of overflow were being drained. Spain’s national weather agency AEMET lifted the highest alert for the south but warned that “Marta,” the next front in this year’s string of storms, is expected to hit soon.
In Portugal, a man in his 70s died in the Alentejo region after his car was swept away near a dam. Authorities issued the highest flood alert for the Tagus River in Santarém and evacuated people living near the river; civil protection warned the threat along the Tagus was the most serious in three decades. In Alcácer do Sal, south of Lisbon, the Sado River burst its banks, flooding the town centre with water up to two metres (seven feet) in places. Portugal’s weather agency IPMA said January was the country’s second-wettest since 2000. Train services in the north and centre were suspended; in Lisbon, parks and tunnels were closed and river transport halted. More heavy rain is forecast.
Leonardo has also caused fatalities and evacuations in Morocco, where at least three people died and about 140,000 were evacuated.
Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez