Watch: Flooding washes away cars in northern Spain

Flooding Girona
Images from Cadaques show the wreckage of cars piling up under a bridge near the waterfront - A/NPZ/SM

Spain has been hit by a new deluge of heavy rain that saw cars carried away by floodwater near the northern city of Girona.

In scenes reminiscent of the huge flash floods that devastated parts of Valencia last week, Cadaques, a Catalan coastal town, was among the worst-hit areas.

Footage from the early hours of Friday showed more than 30 cars caught up in a cascade of water heading towards the sea.

Wreckage was seen piling up under a bridge near the waterfront, but no one was reported to have been hurt.

Credit: worldstormm/X

On Friday, Catalonia’s firefighting service said operatives had “checked about 30 cars that were washed away by a torrent in Cadaques”, and that “no one was injured or trapped”.

Catalan’s civil protection authorities had warned local officials of the possibility of flooding but did not send out a special alert to the population via their mobile phones.

Credit: vallma94/instagram

The nearby Alt Emporda and Baix Emporda areas of the coastline have been placed under orange alert because of the possibility of further flooding, with some areas experiencing more than 100 litres of rainfall per square metre in the past 24 hours.

That figure compares to areas of inland Valencia, which experienced more than 600 litres of rainfall per square metre during roughly eight hours on Oct 29 – the day leading up to the flash flood.

Pia Serinyana, the mayor of Cadaques, which is known for its connection with the painter Salvador Dali, said: “We received a warning from the Cecat [Catalonia’s operational coordination centre] but people parked their cars there anyway and the torrent carried them away.”

Credit: vallma94/instagram, HugoScoccia/X

In the Valencia region, the death count from last week’s floods has reached 215.

Rescue workers are searching for some 90 people who are still unaccounted for, although a number of these could be included in the more than 50 bodies yet to be identified.

The Valencian regional government has come under pressure to explain why it failed to send out emergency warnings until 12 hours after Spain’s meteorological agency issued its first red alert on Oct 29.

The alert, telling people to stay in their homes, was finally issued after 8pm, after several towns and districts had already experienced devastating flash floods.

Salomé Pradas, the interior chief of Valencia’s government, said on Thursday that she hadn’t known that sending such a message was possible and the method was only proposed by a technical adviser around 8pm.

But Cadena Ser, the Spanish radio station, aired on Friday an audio recording from a crisis meeting led by Ms Pradas revealing there were discussions at 7.15pm about sending an alert to the population.

Carlos Mazón, the regional president of Valencia, did not attend the meeting until two hours after its 5pm start.

He said he had spent the afternoon in the government headquarters having a working lunch, during which he received “regular updates on the situation”.

It has since emerged that Mr Mazón was in a restaurant until 6pm.

Sources close to Mr Mazón told ABC, the newspaper, that he was having lunch with a journalist to whom he wished to offer a senior role at a public television network.

The Telegraph has contacted Mr Mazón’s office.