The biggest rains of the year came in the first weekend of December, with Sunday seeing up to 140 litres of rain per square metre dumping down in some northern areas of Alicante Province. Rainfall levels were comparatively minor in the Mar Menor, but further south, the Costa Del Sol saw severe flash flooding which cost two lives.
The southern part of Alicante Province saw average levels of 70 litres of rain per square metre, with umbrellas the order of the day in areas like Torrevieja’s Paseo Juan Aparicio (picture from the Mastral Project. There were few reports of flooding, apart from the usual roads that suffer during intense cloud bursts. Orihuela City’s new high speed AVE railway station was affected, including the lifts failing to work, but the main drama was on the Costa del Sol, which saw some of the biggest flash floods in a quarter of a century.
Two people drowned in incidents on Sunday, with an electrician, who was in his work van with three colleagues, when a flash flood hit at La Linea close to the border with Gibraltar. Up the cost, a 26-year-old woman lost her life after becoming trapped by flood waters in a brothel in Estepona as emergency services in helicopters failed to save her.
