At least two people have died and one more is missing after torrential rain and flash flooding swept through Catalonia over the weekend, prompting emergency alerts and travel restrictions across the northeastern Spanish region.
Catalan regional president Salvador Illa confirmed the second fatality in a social media post on Sunday, hours after firefighters reported that a person had been swept away by a stream in Pineda de Mar, a coastal town north of Barcelona. The search for the missing individual was ongoing.
Emergency alerts and travel restrictions
Catalan Civil Protection issued a fresh Es-Alert on Sunday to mobile phones in the counties of Vallès Oriental, Maresme, la Selva, Baix Empordà and Gironès, urging residents to comply with travel restrictions and avoid all non-essential journeys while the downpours continued. A previous alert on Saturday afternoon had recommended suspending all activities and travel from 20:00 across 20 counties, warning that severe weather could persist until Sunday afternoon.
The heavy rain, which began around midday on Saturday along the Catalan coast, was linked to a convective mesoscale system that formed over the Mediterranean. By midnight, between 100 and 200 litres per square metre had fallen across the Barcelonès region. Meteocat, Catalonia's meteorological service, recorded 190.8 litres in the Raval neighbourhood of Barcelona, 170.3 litres near the University Zone on Diagonal Avenue — the highest total there in 18 years — and 152 litres around the Badalona Museum, the most in 21 years.
In the Raval, 3.4 litres fell in a single minute and 36.1 litres in just half an hour, nearly double the 95.4 litres recorded in the same neighbourhood on 24 March 2017. Meteocat warned that the rainfall totals would be exceptional both in volume and geographical extent, adding: "We still have hours to go."
President Illa urged citizens "not to let their guard down," describing "a complicated night" and an episode that "has not yet come to an end."
Rivers, rescues and disrupted transport
The Catalan Water Agency (ACA) reported that the final stretch of the Besòs river had exceeded the danger threshold, with an imminent risk of flooding. At 03:00 on Sunday, the river was flowing through Santa Coloma de Gramenet at a discharge of 520 cubic metres per second, triggering a hydrological risk warning.
Catalonia's fire service had received 682 calls by 03:00, mostly related to flooding, while Barcelona's Bombers logged 910 calls and 145 operations by 07:20. In Granollers, firefighters rescued several people trapped in their cars at a flooded roundabout, some of whom had climbed onto their vehicle roofs as streams swelled suddenly.
The storm also affected the Basque Country, where the emergency centre recorded 150 rain-related incidents in Biscay by Saturday evening, 137 of them in Bilbao. In parts of the Old Town, water reached knee height, leaving some residents unable to enter their homes and prompting businesses to board up their premises.
The flooding comes as Spain grapples with broader challenges, including a housing crisis that has sparked nationwide protests and political tensions over recent parliamentary votes. The region's vulnerability to extreme weather is a reminder of the need for robust climate adaptation measures across Europe.
