A man has been found dead after his car was swept away by flash floods in northeastern Spain.
Emergency workers made the discovery in the early hours of Thursday around 500 metres from his wrecked vehicle in Olivella, Barcelona.
The Mossos d’Esquadra confirmed that the body belonged to the missing driver.
It came after exceptionally intense storms battered parts of Catalonia on Wednesday evening, with rainfall exceeding 90 litres per square metre in less than an hour in parts of the Barcelona coastline.
Car swept away in floodwater
Emergency services were first alerted at 11.03pm after a witness reported seeing a vehicle being swept into a riera – a normally dry or low-flow watercourse that can become extremely dangerous during torrential rain.
Eleven Catalan firefighters were mobilised alongside specialist underwater rescuers, drones and other emergency personnel.
A search continued for several hours before the man’s body was located around half a kilometre from where the vehicle had been found.
The car had been severely damaged by the force of the storm and floodwater.
Authorities had not reported any other deaths or missing people linked to the storms at the time of the latest update.
Aemet had warned of an ‘extraordinary danger’ on the Barcelona coastline, with more than 90mm of rainfall recorded in less than an hour and sudden flooding and rapidly rising watercourses reported.
Emergency warnings were also sent to mobile phones, telling residents to exercise extreme caution when travelling and warning of the potential for flash flooding.
