Flooding in Britain and Portugal
On Thursday, two elderly people were found dead in a flooded home in the town of Fernão Ferro, near Lisbon. According to local reports, the pair had fallen asleep and were unable to escape as their house filled with water.
The storm also triggered several tornadoes across Portugal. On Saturday, a tornado tore through the resort town of Albufeira in the southern Algarve region, destroying caravans at a campground. In footage shared online, the tornado is seen ripping through the site.
Vitor Vaz Pinto, head of the regional civil protection authority, confirmed that an 85-year-old British woman was killed at the campground. Twenty-eight others were injured at a nearby hotel, two of whom were hospitalized with serious injuries.
Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa expressed condolences to the woman’s family and wished the injured a full recovery. The country’s meteorological service declared a high alert in the Algarve and Beja districts in the south, as well as the Setúbal district in central Portugal.
In Britain, severe flooding was reported in the town of Monmouth and surrounding areas in southeast Wales. Emergency teams evacuated residents from homes inundated after a nearby river overflowed overnight, flooding the town center and residential neighborhoods.
According to the Welsh government,“Storm Claudia has caused significant flooding in parts of Wales overnight, which continues to affect homes, businesses, transport and energy infrastructure.”
Authorities in Wales issued 11 flood warnings, four of them classified as severe, and 17 flood alerts. In England, 49 flood warnings and 134 flood alerts were issued.