An exceptionally severe rain and thunderstorm event hit Catalonia on 3 and 4 October. According to emergency services, at least two people died and another person is missing. The victims were recovered in Tordera and in Montornès del Vallès . In Pineda de Mar rescue teams are continuing to search for a missing person. The Generalitat de Catalunya activated the flood emergency plan INUNCAT at the emergency (emergència) level and sent ES-Alert warnings to affected coastal and pre-coastal districts.
Protecció Civil justified the extensive travel restrictions by citing extreme rainfall, with several hundred litres per square metre recorded locally within a few hours. The Servei Meteorològic de Catalunya (Meteocat) and the state weather agency AEMET issued red alerts for parts of the provinces of Barcelona and Girona. Meteocat reported daily totals of more than 200 millimetres at several stations. The 112 emergency number received thousands of calls. At hospitals such as Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona and Hospital de Granollers some areas were temporarily affected by water ingress, but services remained operational, according to the authorities.
Experts described the situation as exceptional: a very moist airflow from the heated Mediterranean met colder air at altitude. This produced long-lived, stationary storm cells and a small-scale vortex that is thought to have channelled and intensified the rainfall. The structure was described in the media and by some meteorologists as a Mediterranean mini-cyclone or as having a weather pattern reminiscent of the tropics. At the same time, authorities and scientists stress that attributing individual events to climate change reliably requires detailed analysis, even though a warmer sea generally favours more intense downpours.
On Sunday, after the heaviest rainfall had eased, the government gradually lifted the remaining travel restrictions and advised extreme caution in flood-prone areas, along rivers and at underpasses. According to initial situation reports, the main damage includes flooded roads, undermined road surfaces, water damage in public buildings, and outages in local electricity and telephone infrastructure. Rescue and safety teams are continuing search operations and hazard clearance. No reliable estimates of property damage were available by evening. The authorities initially provided no further details on the causes of death or any additional missing persons. The Generalitat announced a systematic damage assessment and prioritised repairs to critical infrastructure.
Editor: Andreas M. Brucker (Article created with AI assistance).