Portugal, Spain, southern France slammed by storm Fabien

Emergency services have worked to clear damage caused by severe wind and floods in Spain and Portugal on Sunday after two powerful storms struck the Iberian Peninsula in less than a week, killing at least eight people and causing widespread damage.

Storm Fabien brought a fresh round of high winds and heavy rainfall to the region, just as Storm Elsa, which hit the Iberian Peninsula last Wednesday, began to subside.

In Portugal, one man died in Montijo, near Lisbon, after a tree fell on his truck. A second man was killed in Castro Daire, in the north of the country, when his house collapsed, officials said.

The Portuguese civil protection authority said the heavy rain and strong winds felled trees and caused flooding and damage to infrastructure.

More than 250 people were evacuated from their homes in villages in central Portugal after a storm surge caused river waters to rise, Portuguese news agency Lusa reported. Many houses were left submerged.

The country’s largest utility, EDP, said that thousands of people were without electricity for some time.

The north coast of Spain continued to take a battering as another storm hit. A factory roof was blown off in the northwest region of Galicia on Sunday.

Rough seas have caused waves of over seven metres (23 feet).

Winds of more than 140 kilometres per hour (87mph) were registered in the last 24 hours, which was enough to knock over a concrete electricity pylon in Corrubedo, Galicia.

On Corsica, people are being warned to stay away from the seaside.

Alain Charrier, the Corsica prefecture secretary general said: “As far as rainfall is concerned, we are seeing the end of the crisis. With regards to the wind, we are still in a crisis that could last a dozen or so hours, fifteen or so more in Corsica.

“The major risk is marine submersion with a strong westerly wind, an extremely strong wind. So we must be very cautious. It is very important to advise the population not to go to the beaches and the coastline, because it can be potentially dangerous.”

The severe weather also brought down trees and power lines in western and southern Italy as the system piled into the central Mediterranean.

The run-up to Christmas sees the worst of the weather crossing Greece, Turkey and Cyprus with wet, windy and at times wintry weather hitting Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel by the weekend.