A persistent blizzard covered much of Spain with an unusual amount of snow on Saturday, killing at least four people and leaving thousands stranded in cars or at train stations and airports that suspended all services.
The national meteorological agency reported that, as of 7 am, the snowfall in Madrid reached a level never seen in half a century. More than 50 centimeters of snow fell in the Spanish capital, according to the weather agency AEMET.
The bodies of a man and a woman were recovered by the Andalusian emergency service after their car was taken by the current of a flooded river near the city of Fuengirola. The Interior Ministry said a 54-year-old man was also found dead in Madrid, under a large pile of snow. A homeless man died of hypothermia in the northern city of Zaragoza, local police said.
More than half of Spain’s provinces remained under bad weather alerts for the Filomena storm on Saturday night, seven of them at the highest alert level. In Madrid, authorities triggered a red alert for the first time since the system was adopted four decades ago and called on the military to rescue people from vehicles trapped on everything from small roads to the city’s main thoroughfares.
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Sandra Morena, who was trapped on Friday night while traveling for the night shift as a security guard at a shopping mall, arrived home on foot after an army emergency unit helped her out on Saturday morning .
“I usually take 15 minutes, but this time it was 12 hours freezing, without food or water, crying with other people because we didn’t know how we were going to get out of there,” said Morena, 22.
“Snow can be very beautiful, but spending the night stuck in a car because of that is not fun,” she added.
On Saturday night, Spanish security services rescued all people trapped in vehicles – more than 1,500, said Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
AEMET warned that some regions would receive more than 24 hours of continuous snow due to the strange combination of a stagnant cold air mass over the Iberian Peninsula and the arrival of the hottest Filomena storm in the south.
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The storm is expected to be followed by a sharp drop in temperatures in the coming days, the agency said.
The Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, warned that “the snow will turn to ice and we will enter a situation perhaps more dangerous than the one we have at the moment”.
He added that the priority is to serve the needy, but also to guarantee the supply chain for food and other basic goods.
“The storm exceeded the most pessimistic forecasts we had,” added Ábalos.
Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas International Airport, Spain’s main gateway to and from Spain, will remain closed at least until Sunday, said Ábalos, after the blizzard defeated machines and workers who were trying to keep the tracks free of snow.
All trains entering and leaving Madrid, both urban routes and long-distance passenger trains, as well as rail lines between the south and northeast of the country, have been suspended, said railway operator Renfe.
The storm caused serious disturbances or closed more than 650 roads, according to Spanish traffic authorities, who asked people to stay home and avoid non-essential travel.
More than 100 roads were still impassable almost 24 hours after the storm started shoveling snow in the central strip of the country.
The Spanish government plans to take extra measures to ensure that the weekly loading of the BioNTech-Pfizer coronavirus vaccine in the country on Monday can be distributed to regional health officials via convoys escorted by the police, the interior minister said.
The winter climate disturbed the country’s soccer championship, with some teams unable to travel to the games. Saturday’s match between Spanish league leader Atlético Madrid and Athletic Bilbao was postponed after the plane carrying the Bilbao team on Friday failed to land in the capital and had to turn around.
The regions of Castilla La Mancha and Madrid, where 8.6 million people live, announced that schools would close at least on Monday and Tuesday.
Despite the numerous branches and even whole trees felled by the weight of the snow, the blizzard also yielded surreal images that amused many Madriders, including some brave skiers and a man on a dog sled that was seen in videos widely publicized on social media.
Lucía Vallés, a coach at a Madrid-based ski club who usually has to travel to distant mountains with her clients, was thrilled to see the white layers of snow literally building up on her doorstep.
“I never imagined that, it was a gift,” said the 23-year-old. “But I never took so many photos of me,” she added as she glided through the late 18th century building that houses the Prado Museum.