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After heavy rainfall on Lanzarote, palm trees are standing in the brown floodwater. Image: Screenshot Youtube / Disaster Impact

State of emergency on Lanzarote after heavy rains

Within a few hours, more rain fell on the Canary Island of Lanzarote than usually falls in an entire month – with massive consequences for roads, houses and the tourist industry. The east of the island, around Arrecife and Costa Teguise, was particularly hard hit.

Torrential rains caused havoc on the popular holiday island of Lanzarote over the weekend. Within a very short period of time, almost the entire monthly rainfall occurred locally – with drastic consequences: flooded streets, houses that had been flooded and stranded cars led the regional government of the Canary Islands to temporarily declare a state of emergency on Saturday afternoon. This has since been lifted.

According to the newspaper Tiempo de Canarias, 61 liters per square meter were measured in the island capital Arrecife within just two hours. The nearby resort of Costa Teguise was hit even harder, with 97.5 liters per square meter. Such quantities are unusual for an otherwise rather dry island like Lanzarote – and the effects were correspondingly severe.

Social media footage captured torrents of muddy water surging beneath bridges and vehicles stranded in submerged streets. Local authorities were forced to close multiple roads in response to the flooding.

«We worked all night and took about 300 emergency calls – many of them from Arrecife and Teguise», said Enrique Espinosa, head of emergency services on Lanzarote, speaking to state television. Fortunately, there were no injuries, but several houses were flooded and covered in mud. The situation on the island stabilized on Sunday.

(TN)

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