A persistent blizzard covered large parts of Spain on Saturday with an unusual amount of snow, killing at least four people and leaving thousands trapped in wagons or at stations and airports that suspended all services.
The national weather agency reported that since 7 o’clock in the morning, the snow in Madrid has reached an invisible level in half a century. More than 20 centimeters of snow fell in the Spanish capital, according to the AEMET weather agency.
The bodies of a man and a woman were recovered by the emergency service in the Andalucía region after their car was washed by a flooded river near the town of Fuengirola. The Interior Ministry said a 54-year-old man was also found dead in Madrid under a large pile of snow. A homeless man has died of hypothermia in the northern city of Zaragoza, the local police department reported.
More than half of Spain’s provinces remained under severe weather alerts for the Filomena storm on Saturday night, seven of them at the highest level of warning. In Madrid, authorities first issued a red alert since the system was adopted four decades ago and called on the military to rescue people from vehicles trapped in everything from small roads to the city’s main roads.
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Sandra Morena, who was stranded late Friday while commuting on a night shift as a security guard at a shopping center, arrived home on foot after an army emergency unit helped her on Saturday morning.
“It usually takes me 15 minutes, but this time I was 12 hours of frost, no food or water, crying with other people because I didn’t know how we would get out of there,” said Morena, 22.
“Snow can be very beautiful, but spending the night in a car because of that is not fun at all,” she added.
By Saturday night, Spanish security services had rescued all those trapped in vehicles – more than 1,500, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
AEMET had warned that some regions would receive more than 24 hours of continuous snow due to the strange combination of a stagnant cold air mass over the Iberian Peninsula and the arrival of the warmer Filomena storm from the south.
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The storm is expected to be followed by a severe drop in temperatures in the coming days, the agency said.
The Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, warned that “the snow will turn to ice and we will enter a situation that is perhaps more dangerous than the one we have at the moment”.
He added that the priority was to assist those in need, but also to ensure the supply chain with food and other basic goods.
“The storm exceeded the most pessimistic forecasts we had,” Ábalos added.
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas International Airport, the main gateway to and from Spain, will remain closed at least until Sunday, Ábalos said, after the blizzard defeated cars and workers trying to keep the runways clear of snow.
All trains to and from Madrid, both commuter routes and long-distance passenger trains, as well as the railway lines between the south and northeast of the country, have been suspended, said railway operator Renfe.
The storm caused severe disruption or closed more than 650 roads, according to Spanish transit authorities, who urged people to stay inside and avoid all non-essential travel.
More than 100 roads were still impassable almost 24 hours after the storm began to snow on the central part of the country.
The Spanish government intends to take further steps to ensure that the weekly delivery of the BioNTech-Pfizer coronavirus vaccine to the country on Monday can be distributed to regional health authorities through convoys escorted by police, the interior minister said.
The winter weather disrupted the country’s football league, with some teams unable to travel for games. Saturday’s match between the leader of the Spanish league Atlético Madrid and Athletic Bilbao was postponed after the plane carrying Bilbao’s team on Friday could not land in the capital and had to return.
The regions of Castilla La Mancha and Madrid, with 8.6 million people, have announced that schools will be closed at least on Monday and Tuesday.
Despite the numerous branches and even the entire trees felled by the weight of the snow, the blizzard also gave surreal images that entertained many Madrileños, including some brave skiers and a man on a dog sled, who was seen on videos widely shared on social media. mediate.
Lucía Vallés, coach for a ski club in Madrid, who usually has to travel to the distant mountains with her clients, was delighted to see the white layers of snow that literally gather at her door.
“I never imagined this, it was a gift,” said the 23-year-old. “But not so many photos were taken of me,” she added as she passed the late 18th-century building that houses the Prado Museum.