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VIDEO: Ten-minute flash flood wreaks havoc in Spain’s Zaragoza 

A heavy storm in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza on Thursday transformed the Aragonese capital into a river in a matter of minutes, with cars dragged downstream like boats and neighbourhoods flooded. 

Published: 7 July 2023 10:53 CEST
VIDEO: Ten-minute flash flood wreaks havoc in Spain's Zaragoza 
It took only ten minutes for much of the city of Zaragoza to be underwater. (Stock Photo by CESAR MANSO / AFP)

A sudden summer storm on Thursday afternoon in Zaragoza caught many of the city’s 667,000 inhabitants off guard, as 56 litres per square metre fell in less than an hour. 

The worst part of the downpour lasted just ten minutes, with 20 litres per square metre recorded, causing chaos in the northeastern city on the banks of the Ebro river. 

Residents were trapped in their cars as rainfall levels grew rapidly, with footage of one woman climbing on top of her vehicle as she waited to be rescued going viral. 

Others jumped out of their cars before they were dragged away by the floodwater, looking for high ground and even climbing up trees.  

Although emergency service divers had to rescue eight people including four minors, there have been no casualties reported. 

Underground car parks have been completely flooded and locals have spent the whole night emptying water and mud out of their homes with buckets. 

The city’s Parque Venecia neighbourhood and the Z-30 ring road were the most affected by the torrential rain, according to Zaragoza mayor Natalia Chueca, who added that the flash flood would cost “millions” in repairs to public and private property.

Other parts of Zaragoza province and Aragón region were affected by the heavy rain. 

In the Basque city of Vitoria an unprecedented hail storm with hail balls the size of golf balls turned the city white, injuring several people and causing thousands of euros in damage.

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WORKING IN SPAIN

Why Aragón is on its way to becoming Spain’s next Silicon Valley

Tech giants Amazon and Microsoft are both investing heavily in Spain's northeastern region of Aragón, turning it into a huge hub for data centres that will create thousands of new jobs. It's an unexpected but strategic choice.

Published: 4 July 2024 10:30 CEST
Why Aragón is on its way to becoming Spain's next Silicon Valley

In recent years, Málaga had come to be known as ‘the Silicon Valley of Europe’ after Google and hundreds more tech companies established their European headquarters in the Costa del Sol city.

This has had a huge impact on the local economy and drawn in lots of foreign talent, with some unintended consequences in the process. 

However, another region of Spain is now being favoured by some of the global tech giants: Aragón, the region which houses the city of Zaragoza.

The northeastern region is set to become a hub for international data centres, large groups of networked computer servers which are essential for big companies that depend on digital data, as they’re used for remote storage, processing, or distribution of large amounts of data.

Amazon and Microsoft have both chosen Aragón as their data centre hub for southern Europe.

Last May, Amazon’s cloud computing division AWS announced it will invest €15.7 billion in data centres in Aragón through to 2033.

The investment will reportedly create around 17,500 indirect jobs in local companies and contribute €21.6 billion to Spain’s gross domestic product during the period, Amazon said in a statement.

“This new commitment by AWS spotlights our country’s attractiveness as a strategic tech hub in southern Europe,” Spanish Digital Transformation Minister José Luis Escrivá said in a statement.

This July, Microsoft confirmed as well that it would invest heavily in Aragón, specifically €2.2 billion in a huge data centre project.

“This is great news for the Aragonese economy,” said regional leader Jorge Azcón, highlighting the economic benefits expected from this investment which he believes will have “a knock-on effect” in attracting other companies.

Microsoft had already announced in October its intention to build a data centre campus in Aragón to provide “cloud services to European companies and public bodies” without saying how much investment that would entail. Now it looks like plans definitely go ahead.

Citing figures provided by the IDC consultancy, Microsoft said the project with its 88-hectare (217-acre) campus could “contribute to the creation of more than 2,100 technology jobs in Aragón between 2026 and 2030”.

So why Aragón, a Spanish region that aside from its capital Zaragoza is vastly underpopulated and undeveloped?

One reason is that data centres require locations with a robust electrical capacity, given that data farms consume a vast amount of energy.

In that respect, Aragón is an ideal location due to its ample sunshine and strong wind exposure that have given way to both solar and wind farms.

Other factors that have worked in Aragon’s favour include its robust links to Spain’s communications networks and the region’s geostrategic location, mid-way between Madrid and Barcelona, and with other major cities such as Bilbao and Valencia within relatively close reach.

Data centres also need land. In general, data farms require a high number of hectares. The surfaces range, for example, from the 147 hectares of AWS in the Polígono Empresarium in Zaragoza to 62 hectares near the Walqa Technology Park in Huesca and an additional 44 hectares in El Burgo de Ebro.

Being a vast region (47,719 km²) , Aragón has plenty of space available, coupled with the fact that its population density of 27.8 inhabitants per square metre means that there’s lot of room to build.

Seismic activity is also a decisive factor when tech companies choose locations for data centres, with a preference for  areas in which there is less or no incidence of earthquakes to guarantee its correct functioning. Around 88 percent of the Aragonese territory has a seismic acceleration below 0.040 g, that is, an intensity threshold, which is the lowest in the whole of Spain. 

READ ALSO: What are the pros and cons of life in Spain’s Zaragoza and Aragón?

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