A flash flood has swept away cars in Spanish artist Salvador Dali’s former home area in a repeat of the agonising scenes witnessed 10 days ago in Valencia.
A raging torrent of water carried off everything in its path including more than 30 vehicles as it swept through the centre of the Catalan town of Cadaques.
Residents woke up on Friday to a new scene of destruction, with mayor Pia Serinyana revealing a total of 32 cars had been washed away by the flood water.
Many ended up piled on top of each other by a bridge in front of the town casino, with at least one of the smashed-up vehicles appearing to belong to foreign tourists because of the numberplate that was clearly visible.
Miraculously there were no reports of any human casualties in the former fishing village.
Catalan weather agency Meteocat, which published footage of the latest flash flood to hit Spain in the early hours of this morning, said: “This is how the Cadaques stream goes down after the intense and continuous rain this morning, where there is likely to have been more than 100mm of rainfall.”
One local resident said on X, formerly Twitter: “The situation is very serious in Cadaques.
“Dozens of cars have been swept away by the swollen stream in the town, blocking up the bridge.“It’s been many years since something like this happened in Cadaques.
”The town’s mayor confirmed early on Friday morning no-one had been injured or killed and only material damage had occurred.
He said the number of cars swept downstream had reached 32, adding: “We had an alert from the Operations Coordination Centre of Catalonia but people parked their cars and the water swept them away.
”The heaviest rainfall occurred between 2am and 3am.
One local admitted: “If this raging torrent of water had come through town during the day I’m sure we would have been looking at mass casualties.
“The time of night this happened saved us from a certain tragedy.”
Cadaques is just over three hundred miles north of Valencia, where more than 200 people including two Brits lost their lives in flash floods late last month and 78 people are still missing.
The municipality in Girona province, which a popular tourist destination, is home to the Salvador Dali House Museum.
It is in Portligat a couple of miles from Cadaques town where the Spanish painter set up home in 1930 and normally lived and worked until 1982.
Its official population is around 3,000 but up to ten times as many people can live in the town during the peak of the summer tourism season.
