MADRID — Spanish emergency services were working on Tuesday morning to clear roads, tunnels and houses that were inundated overnight after severe rain and hail pummeled the region around Madrid a day earlier, prompting dramatic flooding in some municipalities.
The storm, which began on Monday afternoon and extended into the evening, transformed some streets into muddied torrents that swept away cars and dumpsters on the outskirts of the Spanish capital.
A portion of Madrid’s highway and subway networks remained closed early Tuesday, as emergency services worked to clear the flooded tunnels and inundated roads.
Areas to the south and east of Madrid were hit particularly hard. In the municipalities of Valdemoro and Arganda del Rey, hailstones the size of golf balls transformed some areas into winter landscapes, as if blanketed by snow.
Local television showed residents trying to barricade their garages with mattresses to block the floodwaters, while others posted videos on social media of the views from their balconies as the water swept vehicles and trash cans down their streets.
The flash flood also prompted some mudslides that cut off roads and brought down trees. Two of the main highways that circumvent Madrid had to be temporarily closed, and some flights were delayed or diverted away from the city’s airport to other neighboring airfields.
The Madrid emergency services said they received over 1,100 calls on Monday evening and firefighters said they responded to over 200 calls, but nobody was reported injured in the summer storm.
The national weather agency had issued a warning ahead of the arrival of the storm, which helped minimize the damage and ensured that firefighters and other emergency services were ready to respond, the director of the Madrid emergency services, José Luis Villarroel, told Telemadrid, a local television station.
“There was the possibility that some people would get trapped and swept away by the water flows, but luckily the few incidents in which people were involved were resolved without any damage,” Mr. Villarroel.
While the storm had been particularly violent, it is not an unusual phenomenon in Spain, particularly at the end of a hot and dry summer, weather experts said.
