Hundreds of homes and roads on Lanzarote have been flooded, after torrential rainfall swept across the Canary Island on Saturday.
Lanzarote’s government declared a state of emergency overnight after 6cm (2.4 inches) of rain poured down on the popular holiday destination in just two hours.
No injuries have been reported by the Spanish authorities – and the state of emergency was lifted on Sunday morning.
The head of Lanzarote’s emergency services told local media some homes had been submerged, with floodwaters leaving behind a “great quantity of mud”.
“We have been working all night, attending 300 calls overnight, many of them in Arrecife and Teguise,” Enrique Espinosa said on Sunday.
Emergency services attended more than 150 incidents in Costa Teguise and in excess of 70 in Arrecife, local media reports.
The area of San Bartolomé was badly hit, according to Lanzarote’s government.
Dramatic footage circulating on social media shows a large surge of floodwater flowing rapidly under a bridge, leaving cars stranded on flooded roads.
The Canaries are particularly vulnerable to floods when hit with intense rain, as their dry climate and volcanic rock mean the ground does not absorb large volumes of water well.
The torrential rain came off the back of Storm Olivier, which swept over the Canaries, mainland Spain and Portugal in recent days – triggering several weather alerts.
Spain’s meteorological service has issued weather warnings for many areas of the country from Sunday to Tuesday – including storms in the north east, rain in the Balearic islands and wind in parts of both the north and south coast.
Reported by BBC
