COSTA DEL HELL
Urgent holiday warning for Brits after Spain is battered by hailstorms and torrential rain floods holiday hotspot
AN URGENT holiday warning for Brits has been revealed after Spain was battered by hailstorms and torrential downpours flooded the holiday hotspot.
Terrifying footage showed giant hailstones and a brutal storm lashing the south-east province of Murcia as other parts of the country basked in eighty-degree heat and sunshine.
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The scenes sparked nearly 30 emergency calls and left families trapped in their homes because of flooding.
Wheelie bins were swept down a street in torrent of water in the Murcian town of Moratalla and the golf ball sized hailstones ripped through crops in Caravaca de la Cruz.
Most of the 26 emergency calls registered were made from Caravaca, although in the nearby town of Cehegin firefighters had to rescue a family whose home had suffered flooding.
The Argos River, which starts in Caravaca de la Cruz and runs through Cehegin before joining the Segura River, burst its banks at several points.
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The health centre in Caravaca was another of the places damaged by flooding, with workers having to try to tackle the problem before emergency responders arrived.
But experts from the AEMET - The State Meteorological Agency in Spain - have now released an urgent warning following the dangerous weather.
They said the risk of tropical-like cyclones called medicanes had increased with record heat waves affecting the country.
Oceanographer and weather expert Yurima Celdran said: “Higher Mediterranean temperatures provide a greater source of energy for medicanes and amplify their destructivity".
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This comes after a 20-month-old girl was killed by a huge hail stone around four inches in diameter in August, and more than 70 others were left injured by falling ice in and around the Catalan town of La Bisbal de l’Emporda.
Most of those hurt suffered head wounds, cuts and broken bones.
Two holidaymakers died in a lightning strike on a beach in Majorca nine days later.
The victims, a a Swiss man aged 65 and a German aged 51, died at a beautiful white sand cove called Cala Mesquida near Capdepera in the north-east of the island.
Tourists travelling to Spain were warned shortly before the beach tragedy they could be caught up in rare Mediterranean hurricanes.
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