SEVERAL Spanish tourist hotspots battled severe floods and thunderstorms over the weekend, with roads turning into rivers.

The military deployed a disaster relief unit to the northeastern city of Zaragoza after intense storms caused flooding across the province.

They worked to drain the excess water and install roadblocks to prevent further flooding.

READ MORE: Red weather warning in Spain’s Catalunya: Emergency phone alert issued with DANA set to bring torrential rain

In Barcelona, a hospital was forced to close because of flooding caused by heavy rain lashing the Catalonian capital on Saturday.

Two people were reported missing from the town of Cubelles, with a witness claiming to see a woman and child fall into the Foix River and being swept away in the floodwaters. 

Rescue workers are continuing the search.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in Cubelles,” Cubelles town mayor Rosa Montserrat Fonoll told Catalan News. The flow of water reached 7,070 cubic feet per second through the town.

At the peak of the storm, emergency services received 1,200 calls in the town. Some residents remain without electricity or running water.

Spanish weather agency AEMET had warned that there was high potential for flash floods in eight provinces Barcelona, Teruel and Zaragoza, Huesca, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, and Castellón.

The agency recorded nearly 3,200 lightning strikes in Barcelona on Saturday alone, with the Tibidabo amusement park and Park Güell closed. There was also a swimming ban on public beaches.

The storm was caused by a weather phenomenon known as Dana, which is an isolated depression at high levels, caused by a mass of cold air colliding with a mass of warm air over the Mediterranean sea.

READ MORE:  Spanish weather expert slams ‘terrifying’ online backlash from ‘horde of partisans who no longer believe in scientific data’

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FC BARCELONA winger Lamine Yamal has been slammed for hiring people with dwarfism for his 18th birthday ‘gangster’ theme party over the weekend.

The Association of People with Achondroplasia and Other Skeletal Dysplasias with Dwarfism (ADEE) claims that short-statured people were deliberately hired for ‘show’ in a move that ‘feeds stereotypes’ and violates the law.

They say they plan to take ‘legal and social’ action over the matter.

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Some footage emerged of Yamal and other guests singing with Dominican DJ and rapper, Chimbala. who is a major Latin American artist and is of small stature.

ADEE did not go into exact details over what caused it offence but its president, Carolina Puente, said: “Our dignity and rights are not entertainment for anyone, under any circumstances.”

“When a person with social influence resorts to this type of practice, the damage is even greater- especially among young people,” she added.

Yamal dined with his family and friends at a Barcelona restaurant on Saturday and then rented a finca for a party, which costs around €40,000 per week to hire.

Around 200 guests attended with a large security presence and even drones for a ‘gangster’ themed party.

Broadcaster TVE said that drones were deployed in a security operation and all of the guests had to handover their mobile phones.

Lamine Yamal dressed up as a mafia figure with the celebrations running until around 6am on Sunday.

The guest list included a mixture of footballers, pop singers, and social media influences, along with content creators.

There was further controversy afterwards when Yamal posted a social media video featuring him in a car leaving the venue but not wearing a seatbelt.

Yamal reportedly joined his Barcelona teammates for a training session later on Sunday.

Click here to read more Celebrity News from The Olive Press.

Rescue teams from three different Barcelona corporations in Cubelles resumed on Sunday the search for two people, a mother and her child, who were swept away yesterday by the River Foix as it roared through the town due to torrential rains.

A massive storm battered the western Spanish communities of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia on Saturday, when at about 8:30 pm a person called 112 emergency services claiming he had witnessed how the river currents had dragged away the mother and her child.

However, according to Rosa M. Fonoll, the Mayor of Cubelles, there are no reports of missing persons in her locality. But the Catalonia Minister of the Interior,  Núria Parlon, spoke with reporters this Sunday and confirmed that the missing persons are a woman and a child, according to an ABC report.

The Foix Reservoir floodgates

Although it has not been linked to the disappearance, several news outlets have highlighted the fact that the Catalan Water Agency opened the Foix Reservoir floodgates on Saturday, while Civil Protection sent an alert message to Cubelles’ residents via cell phones, warning them not to approach rivers or streams because of sudden water level rises.

Fire department personnel were working in the area where the alleged disappearance occurred, attempting to control the landslide. In a video posted on X by “A pie de Calle”, massive flows of muddy water are seen spilling onto the streets of Cubelles.

According to the witness, two people were crossing the Foix River on a wooden footbridge near its mouth. The bridge presumably collapsed due to the river’s current, and the two were swept away. In response to the call, firefighters began searching throughout the evening and into dawn, scouring the stream from the last point where the two persons were seen.

Parlon visited Cubelles to supervise the rescue teams. She said that approximately 70 firefighters were deployed to work on “the possible disappearance of the two people” in the Barcelona town and has indicated that “the search will continue for the next few hours.”

Torrential rains affected train schedules and a hospital

However, the local fire chief, Ricard Costa, said the rescue efforts might continue for a few more days. He also said his team is basing the search on the assumption that the two people were swept “by the current in the direction of the river” and were last seen “170 metres from the coastline. We are focusing our efforts from a little further upstream to the mouth of the river and 500 metres beyond the coastline and two kilometres of beach.”

The rains caused flooding in many homes and buildings, including the Alto Penedes Regional Hospital in Vilagranca del Penedés, which will remain closed for several weeks. Seventy-one people who were in the hospital at the time of the flooding were transferred to other medical centres.

The heavy water downpour also caused train cancellations of trains departing and arriving in Barcelona’s Sants Station, where the Red Cross had to assist about 150 people who were forced to spend the night at the station, RTVE reported.

Catalonia, which was on red alert this Saturday due to heavy rain, woke up to better, sunnier weather this Sunday.