Grazalema has become a symbol of the storm that has been hitting southern Spain, but also southern Portugal and northern Morocco for days. One storm after another has been coming from the Atlantic for weeks, bringing rainfall that has long exceeded what normally falls further north on the Iberian Peninsula in a year. The water threatens Grazalema in two ways.
The town in Andalusia with 1,900 inhabitants is located in the middle of a limestone mountain range. The rain no longer drains away quickly enough. From below, the caves and cracks in the limestone fill with water. This emerges where it never appeared. Geologists from the Spanish Science Council speak of a “gigantic sponge”. In some places the groundwater level suddenly rose by 200 meters.
Holes are opening up on streets and in houses. It even bubbles up from the walls of the houses. Residents report loud noise, a rumbling underground. It is the water that makes its way there. Grazalema was completely evacuated. It is not clear when residents will be able to return. It continues to rain and experts do not rule out the possibility that the terrain will give way and huge sinkholes will open up.
Across Andalusia, over 11,000 people have now had to leave their homes. The large rivers such as the Guadalete and the Guadalquivir have overflowed their banks. Even the provincial capital of Cordoba is threatened. 33 reservoirs have already had to open their floodgates and release water, increasing the risk of flooding. As in the town of Ubrique, smaller streams have turned into raging rivers and are flooding entire villages. More than 10,000 firefighters, police officers and soldiers from the UME emergency unit are on duty.
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Over 200 roads are closed and 75 percent of the agricultural area is affected. Two people died in the floods. The Andalusian regional government estimates the damage to roads alone at half a billion euros. The agricultural associations are talking about losses of three billion euros. In many places the olives cannot be harvested.
Things are no better in neighboring Portugal. Many places in the southern half of the country are under water. 13 deaths have already been reported. Over 1,000 people have had to leave their homes so far. 100,000 are without electricity. The damage is estimated at four billion euros.
1,600 soldiers are deployed in a total of 41 villages. The largest European reservoir, Alqueva, on the border between Portugal and Spain had to open the floodgates. This in turn causes the Guadiana River to rise sharply. Several Portuguese towns have postponed the second round of presidential elections this Sunday by a week. It is not possible to suspend them across the country, like the right-wing extremist candidate Andrés Ventura, who will face the Socialist and favorite for the post of head of state, António José Seguro, in the runoff election. The constitution does not provide for this.
The storms are also taking their toll in northern Morocco. Ksar al Kebir, a city with over 100,000 inhabitants, had to be completely evacuated, along with other places. A total of 150,000 people are waiting in emergency shelters for the water to recede. Several places are completely cut off and the army is supplying them with food by helicopter.
The anxious look at the clouds continues. Meteorologists are predicting more rain for at least another week. They talk about a “train of storms”. Due to a fragmentation of the cold air layers over the Arctic and the warming of the seas as a result of climate change, these lows are not moving through northern and central Europe as usual, but through the south. They take with them warmer layers of air from the Caribbean, which have absorbed a lot of moisture. This results in unusually heavy rainfall.