Updated

Flash floods swept through the town of Madrigueras in south-east Spain on Friday, October 2, 2026 (reported this week), killing a 102-year-old woman and forcing firefighters to rescue 90 people. The town received 142 litres of rain per square metre in just two and a half hours, submerging streets, damaging businesses, stranding vehicles and trapping residents in their homes. The flooding followed Spain's hottest summer on record, during which more than 2,000 people are thought to have died from heat-related causes in August, underscoring a pattern of extreme and compounding weather events affecting the country this year.