Storm Martinho lashes Spain – bringing threat of fresh flooding
Heavy rains continue to batter Spain bring the risk of further flooding as storm Martinho brings strong winds, large swells and intense rainfall to large parts of the country.
Dozens of roads remain closed and the Spanish government has urged residents to avoid travel according to local media reports due to forecast heavy rain and the water levels of the Manazares River in Madrid remaining high.
The Spanish weather bureau, Aemet, said storm Martinho was heaping more rain onto areas on Friday and through the weekend that have already experienced plenty of rain in the last few weeks.
'Storm Martinho is dumping heavy rain where there has already been a lot of rainfall. It's also raining in areas with snow, causing it to melt,' the bureau said.
'The soils are saturated, and many rivers are experiencing very high flows in the central and southern parts of the Peninsula. Be careful of flooding.'
Winds of up to 90km/h are expected on Friday for parts of Spain while other parts of the country are likely to get up to 60 millimetres of rain on top of three weeks of heavy storm activity.
But relief is on the way, Aemet said.
'The rains will cease across much of the Peninsula during the week of March 24-30,' it said, adding rain will be limited to the north in the next week, which has not experienced the downpours the rest of the country has been hit with.
For Friday all autonomous providence remain under a yellow weather warning, except for the Canary Islands, and those warnings persist in many areas across Saturday as well.
Strong winds of 70km/h are forecast for Almería on Friday, with winds of 60km/h expected for the weekend.
Parts of Ávila are forecast to experience rainfalls of up to 60 millimetres, while Salamanca is expected to get up to 40 millimetres through Friday.
Footage on social media shows children being carried on the backs of rescuers through ankle-deep flood water in Ávila, with El Pais reporting firefighters rescued 41 children from a religious centre there on Friday morning.
In Malaga emergency services are searching for a motorcyclist they believe was swept away in flooding on Wednesday, El Pais reports, after the man's motorbike was found buried under flood debris.
Storm Martinho follows three weeks of consecutive extreme weather in Spain, and follows storms Jana, Konrad and Laurence.
It comes after two people lost their lives in flooding caused by Storm Laurence earlier this week. Dozens of roads across Spain have been closed due to storm damage, with trains and flights also cancelled according to local news reports.
Dramatic footage of Storm Laurence shows cars being swept away in flood waters in Murcia with roads turned into rivers as the region was hit by torrential rain on Tuesday.
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