Tarragona storm flood damage has hit the Catalonia region of Spain hard, with streets submerged, trees down across roads and bus services cancelled after a severe thunderstorm tore through the area on Monday. No injuries have been reported.
The extreme weather brought strong hail, high winds and heavy downpours across Camp de Tarragona, with flooding reported on Carrer Joan Baptista Plana, Imperial Tàrraco, Carrer Vidal i Barraquer, Carrer d’Apodaca and Avinguda Prat de la Riba. Plazas as well as streets were under water.
Firefighters log 129 calls in ninety minutes
The scale of the response tells its own story. Firefighters answered 129 calls in just an hour and a half, with 107 of those coming from the Tarragona region alone. Fallen branches and damaged electrical cables accounted for much of the workload.
Sonia Orts, the Councillor for Civil Protection and Mobility, gave a clear summary of where things stood: ‘Fortunately, there are no reports of personal injuries.’ Despite that, she confirmed significant material damage across the affected area.
Tarragona City Council moved quickly to close local parks and begin removing dangerous trees. The public have been warned to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travel, according to reports from Express, which also noted that public transport is heavily disrupted, with bus cancellations across the region.
Tarragona storm flood damage follows highest-level weather alert
The Meteorological Service of Catalonia had issued a six-out-of-six violent weather alert ahead of the storm, warning of hailstones larger than two centimetres in diameter. That maximum-level alert proved justified. Videos circulating online showed pigeons struck down in deep pooled water across the streets, a visible sign of just how heavy the downpours were.
The storm did not arrive without warning. Several municipalities in Segrià, including Almenar, Corbins, Albatàrrec and Lleida city, had already taken the brunt of enormous hailstones before the weather system pushed south-east towards Tarragona. Farmers in those areas saw local crops impacted by the bombardment.
This stretch of northeast Spain has had a brutal few days. Just before the Tarragona storm hit, hurricane-force winds ripped through the Balearic Islands overnight, with gusts peaking at 121 kilometres per hour in the early hours of Friday. Residents and tourists on Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera woke to scattered debris, battered coastal areas and flooded roads across the archipelago. The back-to-back events paint a grim picture of extreme weather across some of the most visited parts of Spain this summer.
For anyone currently in or heading to the Tarragona area, the advice from local authorities is straightforward: stay indoors, avoid unnecessary travel and steer clear of parks until the council’s clearance work is complete.