A deadly storm has sparked chaos in Spain and Portugal as ferocious winds and heavy flooding submerged towns, forced motorways shut and triggered a freak earthquake in a tourist hotspot.
Roads have turned into raging rivers and a man in his 60s has died after being swept away by a powerful current in southeastern Portugal as Storm Leonardo batters the peninsula.
‘A vehicle was found with one occupant, so there is one death,’ a spokesperson for the national civil protection authority said.
Torrential rain and gusts of up to 100 kilometres per hour have caused landslides and triggered three earthquakes in Gaucin, a mountainous town in the province of Malaga.
Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes across Andalusia with injuries reported after a building collapsed.
The flooding has caused mayhem in Madrid as the M14 motorway, near Madrid-Barajas Airport, the main international terminal serving the Spanish capital, has been forced shut with fire crews battling to drain the roads.
Major pile ups of traffic have been reported on the M13 with disruption further exacerbated by a burst pipe flooding the airport’s metro station and pushing more water onto the already submerged streets.
Dramatic footage shows water gushing through streets as homes and vehicles become engulfed by flash floods in Cadiz.
A deadly storm has sparked chaos in Spain and Portugal as ferocious winds and heavy flooding submerged towns (Pictured: Alcacer do Sal in Portugal)
Residents have been forced to board emergency dinghys after their streets became submerged
Roads have turned into raging rivers as homes and vehicles become engulfed by flash floods in Cadiz
While dirty mud coloured water submerged parts of Setubal, a tourist hotspot just south of Lisbon.
Residents could also be seen wading through knee high water and boarding emergency dinghys as their houses became engulfed by murky water.
Seville’s iconic 12th century Giralda bell tower has been damaged with debris falling following strong gusts of wind, local media have reported.
A woman is her 30s is missing near the Costa del Sol after leaping into a river to rescue her dog.
The woman jumped into the river in Sayalonga, Malaga province, and was swept away by a rapid current.
Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes, including 3,500 in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, where one person was injured as a building collapsed.
Hundreds of soldiers deployed to assist the rescue services, while all Andalusian schools were closed apart from in its easternmost province of Almeria as the region is placed under a red alert for ‘extraordinary’ rain.
Almost all suburban, regional and long-distance trains were cancelled across Andalusia, with no bus replacement services possible due to the state of the roads, dozens of which were closed.
The mayor of Ronda, a city in Malaga province, said the ‘the ground can no longer absorb’ the constant downpours, speaking of ‘numerous landslides’ in the surrounding rural areas.
Heartbreaking footage also showed two dogs chained up to a house, unable to escape, as they were seemingly abandoned by their owner as water submerged San Martin del Tesorillo, a town in Cadiz.
A burst pipe flooded the metro station serving Madrid’s main airport and pushed more water onto the already submerged streetes
The flooding has caused mayhem in Madrid as the M14 motorway has been forced shut with fire crews battling to drain the roads
The storm has unleashed up to 35 centimetres of rain, submerging towns across the Iberian peninsula
Pictured: Construction workers take cover in a building as water lashes down and floods the streets
Homes have been flooded by dirty water following enormous outpouring of rain on Wednesday
Pictured: Two nuns stuck inside as flood water from Sado River covers the street in Alcacer do Sal
The flooding has caused significant disruption with cafes and businesses forced to shut amid intense rainfall
In Alcacer do Sal (pictured) the Sado river had burst its banks and the rising water has submerged the town’s main avenue
Leonardo is the latest in a string of storms to lash Spain and Portugal this year, examples of extreme weather events that scientists say human-driven climate change is worsening.
Andalusia’s top emergency official, Antonio Sanz, said the situation was ‘very worrying’ in the nearby mountainous municipality of Grazalema.
Grazalema soaked in more than 40 centimetres of rain on Wednesday, ‘the usual amount of rainfall in Madrid in an entire year’, a spokesperson for Spanish weather agency AEMET said.
One person was injured when a large rock fell onto their house in Ubrique, a municipality in Cadiz.
Portugal is still reeling from last week’s Storm Kristin, which killed five, injured hundreds and cut off tens of thousands of customers from the power grid.
Portuguese emergency services have dealt with more than 3,300 incidents since Sunday, mostly due to flooding, falling trees and landslides, according to the Civil Protection authority.
The service had deployed more than 11,000 people, and around 200 residents were evacuated in central Portugal on Wednesday.
Dozens of cars suffered damage on Thursday as rocks, mud and water from the Serra de Sao Mamede mountain range lashed on Portalegre.
In Alcacer do Sal, south of Lisbon, the Sado river had burst its banks and the rising water had submerged the town’s main avenue.
Emergency crews have battled to drain the roads as heavy rainfall submerges streets across Spain and Portugal
The Pozo de los Humos waterfall in Salamanca has seen an extraordinarily high flow due to snowmelt and heavy rains
Inflatable boats have been used to ferry away residents as their homes, schools and businesses
‘I had never seen anything like it. Water was pouring into Alcacer with unimaginable force,’ shopkeeper Jessica Ramalho, 28, said.
Andre Perdigao, a 40-year-old cafe owner, said the town hall was working flat out so that ‘we can protect ourselves. But right now, the situation is out of control.’
The Lisbon region and the Algarve in the south were most affected, with rain and wind predicted to reach their peak intensity overnight Wednesday to Thursday.
Spain remains traumatised by its deadliest floods in decades in October 2024, when more than 230 people died, mostly in the eastern region of Valencia.
On Wednesday, footage showed streets transformed into fast-flowing rivers, with residents wading through deep water as emergency services battle flooding.
In one image, a car is completely submerged, with only its roof visible above the water.
The storm is expected to weaken on Friday but a new Atlantic storm has been forecast to arrive on Saturday.