{"id":7006,"date":"2026-02-28T02:01:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=7006"},"modified":"2026-02-28T02:01:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:01:03","slug":"a-devastating-force-how-recent-storms-turned-to-tragedies-across-the-western-mediterranean-extreme-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=7006","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A devastating force\u2019: how recent storms turned to tragedies across the western Mediterranean | Extreme weather"},"content":{"rendered":"


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F<\/span>or Andr\u00e9s S\u00e1nchez Barea, in Spain, it was the fear that arose when water started to spurt from plug sockets. For Nelson Duarte, in Portugal<\/a>, it was the helplessness that hit as violent winds smacked down trees and tore tiles from roofs. For Amal Essuide, in Morocco, it was the reality that dawned when a corpse was pulled onboard a boat in the flooded medina.<\/p>\n

Each moment of horror is a fragment of the destruction wrought by an atmospheric machine-gun that in recent weeks has fired storm after storm at the western Mediterranean. Scientists do not know if climate breakdown helped pull the trigger, but research suggests it loaded the chamber<\/a> with bigger bullets.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Debris after Storm Kristin in Leiria, Portugal, in early February. The storm took out electricity, telephone and internet services in the region.<\/span> Photograph: Pedro Nunes\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Grazalema, Spain\u2019s wettest town, a year\u2019s-worth of rain fell in a fortnight and overloaded the karst aquifer beneath it. Water rushed into homes through floors, walls and even electricity sockets. Authorities ordered everyone to evacuate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt a lot of fear,\u201d said S\u00e1nchez Barea, a guesthouse owner whose home is one of hundreds still in an exclusion zone. \u201cAt first we tried to get rid of the water. Lots of people came to help, but we realised it was impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Grazalema rainfall graph<\/a><\/figure>\n

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In Leiria, one of four regions in Portugal where extreme rain broke records in January, powerful winds added to the damage. Monte Real airbase logged a top wind speed of 109mph (176km\/h) before the station was hit and measurements stopped. Storm Kristin took out electricity, internet, and telephone service in the early hours of a morning that would soon turn deadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was around this time that everything seemed to be falling apart,\u201d said Duarte, a beekeeper in Monte Real who lost half his hives. The house-rattling wind trapped him and his family indoors, where they could do nothing but avoid balconies and windows as they waited it out.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe wind became deafening and relentless, mixed with the sound of collapsing structures, flying tiles, breaking trees and violently banging metal sheets,\u201d Duarte said. \u201cThe atmosphere was terrifying and conveyed the feeling the house might not hold up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duarte\u2019s house held, but others\u2019 did not. Ricardo Teod\u00f3sio, an industrial painter in neighbouring Carvide, was fixing a garage roof with his father when it collapsed on them. Injured, the older man walked two miles to a fire station to get help for his son, who was trapped under the rubble. He was dead by the time they arrived.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Lavos, the commander of the volunteer firefighters of Vieira de Leiria, said Teod\u00f3sio was one of two people to die in the Carvide-Leiria region that day. In the space of 24 hours, the firefighters were deployed to 50 storm-related events, 15 of which involved victims of accidents. \u201cIt was an unprecedented situation that caused immense damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Flooding in Portugal this year. Early analysis from Climate Central has found the climate crisis made a marine heatwave that supercharged the storms in early February 10 times more likely.<\/span> Photograph: Sergio Azenha\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Western Europe<\/a> has been battered by 16 rapid-fire storms this season due to a shift in atmospheric currents that some scientists suggest will become more common as the planet heats up.<\/p>\n

While the role that the climate crisis played in the formation of the storms is still uncertain, early analysis from Climate Central found it made a marine heatwave that supercharged the storms in early February 10 times more likely. On Thursday, a study by World Weather Attribution (WWA), which uses established methods but has not yet been sent for peer review, found carbon pollution made the rains stronger and the floods worse.<\/p>\n

In Safi, the ceramics capital of Morocco<\/a>, explosive mud waves shattered fragile pottery stores when rain swamped the souk at the end of last year. Most of the 43 people killed in storms across the country since mid-December died in the narrow, winding streets of its medina as water surged through.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, we didn\u2019t think there would be big damages,\u201d said Essuide, who watched the chaos play out from the roof of the hotel she runs in the old town, and who was picked up by a rescue team. \u201cBut after we entered the small boat, and they found someone dead, then we realised it was a very hard thing. It was scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

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