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FLOODS

Five dead and three still missing after flash floods in Spain

The death toll from the heavy rains that lashed Spain on Sunday has increased to five as emergency services continue to look for three other people who have been missing since the flash floods that caused havoc across the country.

Published: 5 September 2023 09:31 CEST
Five dead and three still missing after flash floods in Spain
A destroyed car in the middle of a river in the town of Aldea del Fresno, in the Madrid region on September 4, 2023, as a man was reported missing after his vehicle was swept away by an overflowing river during heavy rains. (Photo by Oscar DEL POZO CAÑAS / AFP)

The weekend storm affected almost the whole country, with the heaviest rains recorded on Sunday in the coastal provinces of Cádiz, Tarragona and Castellón, according to state weather office Aemet.

Three people died in the central province of Toledo as a result of the storm, the head of the regional government of Castilla La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, said without giving extra details.

Spanish media said a man was found dead by police during a rescue attempt on a road near the town of Bargas while another man died as rescuers tried to reach him in the town of Casarrubios del Monte.

Two men aged 31 and 34 died also died on Saturday, drowned by torrential rain while trying to climb a gorge in the north-eastern region of Aragón.

Police announced on Monday afternoon that the body of a man in his fifties was found near a river in the town of Camarena, also in the province of Toledo.

Officers of the Guardia Civil search a river bed in the town of Aldea del Fresno. (Photo by Oscar DEL POZO CAÑAS / AFP)
 

Emergency services were looking for a man who went missing after his car was swept away early on Monday by a swollen river in the rural area of Aldea del Fresno west of Madrid, a spokesman from Madrid’s emergency services, Javier Chivite, told public television RTVE.

Firefighters found his 10-year-old son – who was also in the car and was initially reported as missing – on Monday on top of a tree, he added.

Emergency services had rescued the boy’s mother and sister earlier in the day.

“The poor boy spent the night perched in a tree,” the head of the regional government of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, told reporters.

The family, who live in the Madrid suburb of Alcorcón, were staying at a holiday home they own in Aldea del Fresno when the storm hit. They took to the road because they became alarmed by the flash flooding, she added.

A bridge demolished by the swelling of Alberche river following heavy rains in Aldea del Fresno, in the Madrid region, on September 4th 2023.(Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP)
 

Several bridges collapsed in Aldea del Fresno and torrents of water swept away many cars, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

Police were also looking for an 83-year-old man who was swept away by floodwaters in the neighbouring town of Villamanta, as well as for a woman who went missing in the town of Valmojado in Toledo, local emergency services said.

A helicopter was deployed to rescue people who sought safety on the roofs of their homes in Toledo.

‘Behave with caution’

On Sunday residents of the Madrid region received an emergency text in Spanish and English accompanied by a loud alarm urging them not to use their vehicles and stay at home due the “extreme risk of storms”.

It was the first time the authorities had used this mobile phone alert system.

Several theatres closed early on Sunday, and the day’s football match between Atletico Madrid and Sevilla was suspended.

A number of metro lines were closed in Madrid during the morning rush hour on Monday due to flooding caused by heavy overnight rains, although by the mid-afternoon they were all open again.

High-speed rail links between Madrid and the southwestern region of Andalusia and the east coast region of Valencia, which closed on Sunday, reopened on Monday although trains were running at slower speeds in some sections, railway operator Renfe said.

The heavy rainfall eased on Monday morning. Aemet lowered its alert level for the Madrid region to yellow from a maximum red alert on Sunday.

A truck driving through a flooded street in Madrid on September 4th. (Photo by Thomas COEX / AFP)
 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez thanked emergency services for their work and urged people to “continue to behave with caution”.

The torrential weather comes after Spain — which has endured three years of scant rainfall that has prompted some regions to impose water use restrictions — endured an intense heatwave and persistent high temperatures in August.

Scientists warn that extreme weather such as heatwaves and storms is becoming more intense as a result of climate change.

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FOOD AND DRINK

‘Stress test’: Olive oil producers adapt to climate change

Olive oil producers are improving irrigation and seeking new varieties of olives to safeguard production as climate change upends harvests, causing prices of the staple of the Mediterranean diet to soar.

Published: 27 June 2024 16:58 CEST
'Stress test': Olive oil producers adapt to climate change

“Climate change is already a reality and we need to adapt to it,” according to the executive director of the International Olive Council (IOC) Jaime Lillo.

He spoke at the opening of the three-day olive oil congress in Madrid which brings together 300 participants from around the globe.

The gathering came as the world’s top olive oil producers, including Spain, Italy and Greece, have recorded an unprecedented drop in production over the past two years due to extreme drought and repeated heatwaves.

Global production of olive oil fell from 3.42 million tonnes in the 2021-2022 season to 2.57 million tonnes in 2022-2023, IOC figures show.

And according to data supplied by the organisation’s 37 member states, it is set to fall again in 2023-2024 to 2.41 million tonnes.

This has caused prices to soar by between 50 percent and 70 percent over the past year, depending on the variety concerned.

Prices in Spain, which supplies around half of the world’s olive oil, have tripled since 2021, to the dismay of consumers.

READ ALSO: Spain to eliminate tax on olive oil to ease price jump

‘Complex scenarios’

Olive oil has been an essential part of the Mediterranean diet for thousands of years. Spaniards for instance use it to cook and to season fish, salads, vegetables and other dishes.

“The rise in prices has been a particularly demanding stress test for our sector. We have never experienced anything like this before,” said Pedro Barato, the head of the Spanish Olive Oil Interprofessional Organisation.

“We have to prepare ourselves for increasingly complex scenarios that will allow us to face up to the climate crisis,” he added, likening the “turbulence” faced by olive producers to that experienced by the banking sector during the 2008 financial crisis.

The outlook is not encouraging.

Over 90 percent of the world’s olive oil production comes from the Mediterranean basin.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said this region is warming 20-percent faster than the global average.

This situation could affect world production in the long term.

“We are facing a delicate situation” which implies “changing the way we treat trees and soil”, said Georgios Koubouris, a researcher at the Greek Olive Institute.

“The olive tree is one of the plants best adapted to a dry climate. But in an extreme drought, it activates mechanisms to protect itself and no longer produce anything. To grow olives, you need a minimum amount of water,” said Lillo.

‘Find solutions’

Among the possible solutions raised at the Madrid congress is genetic research.

In recent years hundreds of varieties of olive trees have been tested to identify the species best adapted to higher temperatures.

The goal is to find “varieties that need fewer hours of cold in winter and that are more resistant to stress caused by lack of water at certain key times” of the year, such as spring, said Juan Antonio Polo, head of technology at the IOC.

The sector is also looking to improve water use by storing rainwater, recycling wastewater and employing technology to use less water to irrigate trees.

This means abandoning “surface irrigation” and instead using “drip systems” which bring water “directly to the roots of the trees” to avoid water loss, said Kostas Chartzoulakis of the Greek Olive Institute.

Farmers are abandoning production in certain areas that could become unsuitable for olive trees because they are too dry and moving them to other regions.

There has been a rise in new olive tree plantations, although on a small scale, in regions previously not used to grow the crop, said Lillo, adding that he was “optimistic” about the future.

“With international cooperation, we will gradually find solutions,” he said.

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