The body of a woman was found in the central Spanish province of Toledo on Saturday by an army search team, bringing to six the number of people killed by last weekend’s torrential rains in that country.
A dog from the Military Emergency Unit (UME) found the body some 50m from the Vallehermoso watercourse, near Valmojado, according to a spokeswoman for the Guardia Civil police force, Antonia Requena.
He “was hidden under the bushes and mud” and “he has yet to be identified”, this spokesperson told the press on site.
This woman’s car was found in poor condition on Monday.
After months of historic drought, Spain was hit by torrential rains that left six people dead, while a ten-year-old child managed to escape drowning by taking refuge in a tree.
Search teams found the bodies of three men on Monday and three people were then missing.
Then, on Friday, they found two other men near the town of Aldea del Fresno, where the Alberche river flooded.
These bad weather particularly affected the regions of Madrid and Castile-La Mancha (center), where downpours fell during the night from Sunday to Monday.
In Madrid, these torrential rains had also led to the temporary closure of several metro lines.
Last Sunday, Madrilenians received an emergency alert on their cell phones accompanied by a loud sound signal, unprecedented in Spain, inviting them to stay at home.
A country on the front line of global warming and where 75% of the territory is threatened with desertification, Spain is regularly hit by torrential rains in late summer and autumn, which struggle to penetrate the ground and suddenly cause swelling the bed of the rivers.
This phenomenon, called “Dana” by meteorologists (“isolated depression at high levels”), sometimes has dramatic consequences. In 2018, 13 people died on the Balearic island of Mallorca.
09/09/2023 17:56:31 – Madrid (AFP) – © 2023 AFP