Torrential rain falls on Spain, four months after deadly Valencia floods

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MADRID (Reuters) – Torrential rains on Thursday caused floods that swept away cars as local authorities evacuated schools and closed roads in eastern Spain, four months after deadly flash floods in Valencia caused killed more than 220 people.

The state weather agency Aemet issued orange alerts for some parts of the Murcia, Valencia and Catalonia regions on the country’s Mediterranean coast as officials told people to stay indoors.

Spaniards are still nervous after heavy rains last year caught authorities on the hop and caused the country’s deadliest natural disaster in decades, with many blaming local and national officials for warning people of the danger too late.

Images broadcast on a local television station showed a car being swept down the river Lorca in Murcia. A woman had to be rescued from the car by local firemen, La 7 television said. Another man had to be rescued from his vegetable patch with a tractor, La Sexta said.

Fernando Lopez Miras, president of the Murcia region in southeastern Spain, said there had been no casualties on Thursday although one person died when they were swept away in a flooded ravine earlier in the week.

“There was nothing to indicate that it was going to rain as it is raining,” Lopez Miras said on La Sexta. “Every day the ravines are accumulating more water and there are more flooded streets. The water won’t stop and the Aemet’s alerts hadn’t forecast this would be so prolonged.”

Aemet said that in some areas 120mm had fallen in 12 hours and some weather stations had experienced more rain in March than would normally be expected in all of the spring season.

It said a new weather front coming from the west would mean the rains would continue across the country until the weekend.

(Reporting by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Toby Chopra)