Spain has been hit by a new deluge of heavy rain that saw cars carried away by floodwater near the northern city of Girona.
In scenes reminiscent of the massive flash flood that devastated parts of Valencia last week, the Catalan coastal town Cadaqués was among the worst hit areas.
Footage from the early hours on Friday shows more than 30 cars caught up in a cascade of water heading towards the sea.
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The wreckage is seen piling up under a bridge near the waterfront, but no one is reported to have been hurt.
Catalonia’s firefighting service said on Friday that operatives had “checked about 30 cars that were washed away by a torrent in Cadaqués”, adding that “no one was injured or trapped”.
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Catalan’s civil protection authorities had warned local officials of the possibility of flooding but did not send out a special alert to the population via their mobile phones.
The nearby Alt Empordà and Baix Empordà areas of Catalonia’s coastline have been placed under orange alert because of the possibility of further flooding, with some areas experiencing more than 100 litres of rainfall per square metre in the past 24 hours.
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That figure compares to areas of inland Valencia, which experienced more than 600 litres of rainfall per square metre during roughly eight hours on Oct 29 – the day leading up to the flash flood.
Pia Serinyana, the mayor of Cadaqués, a town known for its connection with the painter Salvador Dalí, said: “We received a warning from the Cecat [Catalonia’s operational coordination centre] but people parked their cars there anyway and the torrent carried them away.”
In the Valencia region, the death toll from last week’s floods remains at 211.
Rescue workers are searching for some 90 people who are still unaccounted for, although a number of these could be included in the more than 50 bodies yet to be identified.
