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Storm Adam eases after deadly floods in eastern Spain; Sánchez heads to Oliva
Record rainfall drowned towns in Valencia and Alicante, more than 2,100 people were evacuated and at least four died, as the prime minister prepared to visit the worst-hit coast on Tuesday.
Key points
- At least four people have died and one count puts the toll at five after Storm Adam hit eastern Spain.
- Oliva recorded 600 litres of rain per square metre in 24 hours, among the heaviest falls on record in Spain.
- The Civil Guard has evacuated more than 2,100 people in the Valencia region and rescued almost 500.
The storm that drowned towns along Spain’s eastern coast began to ease on Tuesday, leaving at least four people dead, thousands out of their homes and some of the heaviest rainfall the country has ever recorded. One count puts the death toll at five.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was due to visit Oliva, on the Valencian coast, at about midday, accompanied by the regional president Juanfran Pérez Llorca and ministers Sara Aagesen, Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Diana Morant. He is expected to address the media at the emergency command post set up in the town.
Storm Adam dumped 600 litres of rain per square metre on Oliva in 24 hours. L’Atzúvia, in Alicante province, recorded 713 litres over the whole episode, and nearby Pego took 632 litres in 36 hours, 430 of them in just six. The state weather agency Aemet called the rainfall in the counties of La Safor and Marina Alta “exceptional”. Only two events in Spain have exceeded it: Oliva itself in 1987, with 817 litres in a day, and Turís during the catastrophic floods of 2024.
Rooftops and campsites
The Girona and Vernisa rivers and the Beniopa ravine burst their banks. In Oliva, streets went under and residents climbed to upper floors and rooftops to wait for rescue. About 2,000 people were moved out of seven campsites in the town. A woman was found dead inside a flooded property there, and a 64-year-old man suffered a fatal heart attack at a flooded campsite. Over the weekend, a woman was swept away near Cabrera de Mar, north of Barcelona, and another woman’s body was recovered near Sagunto.
On Tuesday rescuers also found the body of a farmer in the Pego-Oliva marshland. Officials are investigating whether his death is linked to the storm.
The Civil Guard says it has evacuated more than 2,100 people in the Valencia region and rescued almost 500 since the storm began, deploying more than 1,300 officers with helicopters, boats and specialist water and mountain rescue teams. Around 400 people spent Monday night at Oliva’s municipal centre.
The streets of Oliva remain covered in water and mud, and most rural roads are still cut off, though power and phone lines have been restored. A wall has collapsed at the town’s Gabriel Císcar secondary school.
Lessons from 2024
The Valencian regional government confined residents of 145 towns in Valencia and Alicante to their homes on Monday, before gradually lifting the order in the afternoon. It sent mobile phone alerts over the weekend and again on Monday telling people to avoid travel, stay away from rivers and ravines and seek higher ground. The warnings were a pointed contrast with October 2024, when more than 230 people died in the region and delayed emergency alerts drew fierce criticism.
Classes were suspended for more than 100,000 pupils in the Valencia region and about 160,000 in Mallorca, Ibiza and Formentera. Ibiza logged more than 130 incidents, and standing water disrupted operations at its airport. The army’s emergency unit, the UME, has been sent to the Balearic Islands.
Aemet kept warnings in place in nine provinces on Tuesday, with the heaviest rain now moving over Catalonia and the Balearics.