Date Published: 21/01/2020
ARCHIVED - Four dead across Spain as Storm Gloria batters the region of Valencia
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
No school for 70,000 pupils in the Comunidad Valenciana as snow, rain and wind batter eastern Spain
As the torrential rain and snow brought by Storm Gloria to the south-east of Spain begins to die out there is a temptation for those in the Region of Murcia to complain that once again they have been the victims of the worst of a heavy storm, as was the case last September, but on this occasion it would appear that in fact over the last couple of days conditions in the Comunidad Valenciana have been even worse.
Two of the four deaths directly attributable to the weather in Spain since Sunday have occurred in the region, the victims being a 54-year-old Rumanian woman who died of hypothermia while sleeping rough in Gandía on Sunday night and a 70-year-old man in Moixent, also in the province of Valencia, although in his case the exact circumstances of his death have yet to be clarified.
The other two fatalities were those of a driver in León who was hit by a car while fitting snow chains to his own vehicle on Sunday morning and a 63-year-old who was struck by a roof tile as it blew off a roof in Ávila.
Other incidents in the Comunidad Valenciana include a palm tree being blown down and injuring two people in Orihuela (where over 10,000 residents were left without electricity when two supply pylons were blown down on Monday), towns isolated on the higher ground inland and numerous instances of flooding and damage as 8-metre waves battered the coastline.
On Tuesday over 70,000 pupils were spared classes as schools remained closed in various municipalities in the provinces of Alicante, Valencia and Castellón, and between Sunday morning and Tuesday morning the 112 emergency services call centre reports receiving over 5,700 calls reporting 4,260 weather-related incidents
As the worst of the weather moves north the AP-7 motorway was closed on Tuesday morning between Figueres and the French border in the far north-east of Catalunya, but according to the forecasters at Aemet conditions are likely to ease. On Wednesday the only alerts for snow are in central northern Spain, with warnings of heavy rain, strong winds and high waves limited mainly to Catalunya in the north-east of the mainland and Galicia in the north-west.
Join the Murcia Weather Watch group on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest forecasts and weather-related stories: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RegionOfMurciaWeatherWatch/.