Almost 1,000 calls to emergency hotline due to rainstorms in southern Catalonia

The 112 emergency hotline received just under 1,000 calls on Friday night as a result of the heavy rainfall that fell in Tarragona and other parts of southern Catalonia. 

Almost all of these calls were made from Tarragona, where flooding forced authorities to cancel the local Santa Tecla patron saint festivities that were due to take place Friday evening, although a couple hundred came from the nearby towns of Salou and Vila-seca too. 

Over 100 liters per square meter of rain fell in the area. 

Catalan president Pere Aragonès was in the southern Catalonia city on Saturday morning alongside mayor Pau Ricomà to visit the most affected areas, including the El Miracle school, where a large wall collapsed due to the flooding. The residents of a nearby building who were evacuated have already been allowed to return. 

The badly hit neighborhoods of Serrallo, Vall de l'Arrabassada, and the Port are slowly returning to normality as locals remove the water and mud that made its way into the ground floors of buildings.  

Service on Rodalies' R14, R15, R16 and R17 train lines between Tarragona and Vila-seca has been restored, but civil protection warns of possible further rainstorms on Saturday. The A-7, N-340 and C-13b highways have also reopened to traffic. 

More frequent and more intense rain

Authorities warned only a day earlier that Catalonia would be subject to more frequent and more extreme episodes of rain in the coming years due to climate change. 

Around a third of Catalan municipalities are at high or very high risk of flooding, a phenomenon civil protection and Meteocat weather service experts predict will have caused some €2.5bn in damage from 2004 to 2033. 

The recent death of a toddler who was hit by 10-cm wide hailstones in northern Catalonia is a reminder that these future storms will likely exact a human toll too. 

Safety recommendations

Safety recommendations before and during storms, which are even more common in the fall, include making sure water drainage systems are not clogged and not getting close to riverbeds and streams.

People should get out of cars immediately if they are somewhere that begins to flood, leave vehicles parked in garages where they are, stay home if the streets are inundated, switch off the electricity, as well as avoid standing under trees if they are outside and it begins to hail.