A man has lost his life in Portugal after floodwaters engulfed his car, and in Spain, a girl has been reported missing after being swept away by a river as Storm Leonardo has battered the Iberian Peninsula with torrential rain and gale-force winds.
Leonardo is the latest in a wave of half a dozen storms to sweep across Portugal and Spain this year, causing several fatalities, destroying infrastructure and leaving thousands of homes without power.
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Portuguese authorities confirmed on Wednesday that a 70-year-old man died in the southern region of Alentejo after floodwaters swept his vehicle off a road near a dam.
In southern Spain’s Malaga province, a girl remains missing after she was dragged away by the Turvilla River in Sayalonga while trying to rescue her dog. The animal reportedly managed to reach safety, and emergency teams resumed the search for the girl at first light on Thursday, according to local and national news reports.
“We spent the whole afternoon and night yesterday searching in the river from the place where the girl fell in until the very end of the river. We found the dog, but not her,” Malaga fire chief Manuel Marmolejo said on Spanish television on Thursday.
Spain’s State Meteorological Agency has warned that Storm Marta, the next front in the ongoing “storm train”, is expected to reach the region this weekend.
Portuguese Economy Minister Manuel Castro Almeida stated that reconstruction efforts after Storm Kristin alone may exceed 4 billion euros ($4.7bn).
In Alcacer do Sal in southern Portugal, residents were forced to wade through waist-deep water after the Sado River breached its banks following a series of storms. Restaurant terraces were submerged, and shopkeepers and homeowners used stacked sandbags in an attempt to protect their properties from the rising floodwaters.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s surreal,” resident Maria Cadacha told the Reuters news agency. “There are a lot of people here, very good people, many shopkeepers, homes with damage. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.”
Andalusia’s emergency services reported attending to more than a million incidents by midnight on Wednesday.
Antonio Sanz, head of the regional government’s interior department, confirmed that 14 rivers and 10 dams were at “extreme” risk of overflowing due to the severe conditions.
In Portugal, the National Civil Protection authority registered at least 70 incidents by early Thursday as the region continued to monitor the impact of the storm.
