Five people have died and three were still missing Tuesday in floods that have devastated eastern Spain since last Friday, with storms expected to continue through the week, officials said.
Spanish authorities have slapped a state of emergency across 11 eastern provinces where floods have inundated dozens of villages, blocked roads and railways and caused power cuts.
The areas affected run from Tarragona in northeastern Spain to Murcia along Spain's Mediterranean coast. The provinces of Zaragoza, Teruel and Albacete have also been badly affected.
Three were killed and one went missing when a 4X4 vehicle was swept away by floodwaters on Sunday, just south of Tarragona, near the town of Cambrils.
Between Tarragona and Castellon, the river Ebro has risen by 2.5 meters (eight feet) and 150 people have been evacuated from the surrounding delta region of Amposta.
Electricity was cut in some 1,000 homes in the region, officials said.
Just south of Amposta, a 90-year-old woman was found drowned in the basement of her home Monday.
At ramonete, near the southeastern town of Murcia, an Ecuadoran woman was killed when her vehicle was swept away by a swollen river.
Her two-year-old son was still missing after the accident, while her husband managed to reach the banks of the river.
A 37-year-old woman went missing in Cartagena, after she called her husband on a portable phone to say rising waters in a nearby river, which had burst its banks, were carrying her car away.
According to Spain's national weather center, storms were expected to continue Tuesday, lasting until at least Thursday -- MADRID (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
