prompting evacuations and dramatic rescues by helicopter Emergency Services in Asturias used a helicopter to rescue a family trapped in a home surrounded by flood water in Piloña on 24 November 2021 Emergency teams in boats rescued 1 person in Las Rozas and another in La Noceda Furthermore around 40 patients were evacuated from a hospital in Arriondas in Parres municipality due to the flooding around 600 students and teachers from 2 schools in Arriondas were also evacuated Arriondas is located where the Piloña and Sella rivers converge Both rivers were swollen after the heavy rain According to figures from Spain’s State Meteorological Agency AEMET the village of Piloña recorded 87.2 mm of rain; Panizales 159.6 mm; Carreña 139.0 mm and Felechosa 94.4 mm Heavy rain also fell in neighbouring Cantabria where emergency authorities carried out 22 interventions on 24 November Severe weather including heavy rain affected parts of southern and eastern Spain from 20 November Around 30 buildings were damaged and 23 people rescued from trapped vehicles after flash floods in the municipality of Cartagena Local officials said around 100 mm of rain fell in a few hours The rain then moved north into Valencia and Catalonia regions emergency teams had responded to incidents in in the comarcas of Baix Ebre (112 incidents) Some flooding was also reported in Montsià comarca Videos shared on Social Media showed vehicles stranded in on flooded roads in Tortosa and Tarragona Firefighters rescued 3 people from stranded vehicles in Baix Ebre El río Nora en #Siero a estas horas pic.twitter.com/b1TzEj2zV4 — 112 Asturias (@112Asturias) November 24, 2021 — Protección Civil Cabezón de Ia Sal (@PC_CabezonSal) November 24, 2021 — Fon (@10fon) November 24, 2021 A causa de les fortes pluges un home ha quedat atrapat amb un vehicle a l’Ametlla de Mar. Companys de Policia Marítima l’han pogut rescatar i entregar-li la maleta amb la màquina d’oxigen que necessitava i que tenia a l’interior del cotxe @bomberscat @semgencat pic.twitter.com/tvcyMTEVMi — Mossos (@mossos) November 23, 2021 — Diputació de Tarragona (@Dipta_cat) November 23, 2021 Richard Davies is the founder of floodlist.com and reports on flooding news Cookies | Privacy | Contacts © Copyright 2025 FloodList The Feve network is a long way off high-speed … which is perfect for taking in the coast mountain views and charming towns of Cantabria My plan to traverse the northern coast of Spain on the Feve (Ferrocarriles de Vía Estrecha) railway was questioned by hotel hosts sidrería owners and once (justifiably) by a taxi driver who rescued me when the train failed to show one day I’m far from fluent in Spanish but I’m pretty sure a waiter in Oviedo mimed the carriages falling off the rails The Feve – unmarked on most Spanish railway maps despite being a division of state-owned Renfe Operadora – is a trio of 1,000mm narrow-gauge lines stopping at more than 100 stations along the way With so many high-speed inter-city routes available across Europe it may seem bloody minded to take a six-day journey on the continent’s longest narrow-gauge network – but wait until you see where these narrow rails can take you boxy little train with commuters tapping away at their phones; once free of the city the stations grew smaller and the train passed between the pristine Picos de Europa and the coast immersing me in an astonishingly green landscape The Feve at Oviedo Photograph: Huckleberry MountainAn hour outside Santander a tranquil old town that takes its name from its former salt markets thread past ancient casas señoriales (noblemen’s houses) built on the wealth of this precious local commodity I ambled in the early evening light to El Jardín de Carrejo this former stable has been stylishly restored and is now a hotel Its pride and joy is an abandoned canal in the back garden I dangled my legs over the empty channels and watched lizards scuttle on wet stones The only sounds were bickering blackbirds and the distant chime of cow bells Cabezón de la Sal stationThe next day a down-to-earth seaside town in the sweeping “S” of the river Sella a barman was arranging cider barrels outside Sidrería La Marina (Plaza Santa Ana 19) he came over and raised the bottle high in his right hand and sloshed an inch of dry earthy cider into my glass without looking “It adds oxygen and gives the cider crispness,” Elena The seaside town of RibadesellaAs we inched our way through the bottle Elena circled hidden beaches and blow holes on a map and drew a picture of the fish I promised to ask for at lunch “A meteor struck in Mexico and moved the ground up in Asturias scrunching up the map to demonstrate the continental uplift that created the Picos de Europa which painted a ragged line behind the town An escanciador pouring ciderAt Casa Basilio locals thumbed through newspapers while tucking into piles of mussels; everybody was unashamedly daytime drinking I ordered rodaballo (turbot) and then unfolded Elena’s map to seek out the region’s marvels I wandered along an avenue of ornate Indiano mansions – built by rich Spanish mariners returning from the Americas – and stepped over the clints and grykes of the Acantilados de Castro Arenas (limestone pavement just down the coast and dotted with blow holes) I arrived to find hosts Dave and Javier taking a batch of sourdough from the oven; they tutted as I told them how many raciones I’d recently gotten through Eating rodaballo at Casa Basilio“I didn’t have time to be interested in cooking when we lived in Brighton,” said Dave explaining how they’d swapped Sussex for this hamlet “Asturias gives you that space to slow down.” Red-roofed homesteads and hórreos (granaries on stone pillars) dotted the fields Asturians have traditionally focused on fishing and farming: rearing cattle maturing cheese and fermenting their own cider View from the terrace at El Gran Sueño guesthouse Dave served up soup (“It’s made from Jerusalem artichokes and I’ve forgotten the English for it … leeks!”) where a brief stop in Oviedo the following day allowed me to fill my bag with vacuum-packed fabes beans and spicy Asturian sausage By this point the route was cutting across deep valleys and pulling into tiny platforms in the middle of nowhere the hotelier at the elegant La Torre de Villademoros met me at Cadavedo and we chatted about his memories of riding the Feve as a child A cat stared down from a window in the station building above a disintegrating tile map of the route “We used to have our own station master,” said Manolo “He still lives in the building but now he has to work at a larger station in a nearby town,” explaining why this remote stop is now unstaffed La Torre de VillademorosThe Feve has resisted modern life: it used to take three hours to drive between Cadavedo and Oviedo now with the Autovía A-8 it takes 50 minutes commuters sit away from other people,” Manolo said It’s a chance to meet people and reach the culture of nearby towns.” My slow journey wound up in Galicia and I couldn’t resist jumping off at one of the tiny platforms. From Loiba, it was a 2km walk to the Praia do Picón, where I sat on the “most beautiful bench in the world” (as voted in a photography competition) watching waves crash into the tilted granite coastline A street scene in Ortigueira Photograph: Huckleberry Mountain“Galicia lets you live slowly,” Mónica and Alex who run El Castaño Dormilón in nearby Ortigueira we used to run past our neighbours because they wanted to chat,” Alex said “Now I love spending 20 minutes talking about how clear the river is that day.” Evidently time spent in the Asturias and Galicia has the power to help people decelerate Jo Keeling is a freelance writer, festival curator, and editor and founder of Ernest Journal Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. The instructor said ‘no jump’ which she misheard as ‘now jump’ A 17-year-old girl who died after a botched bungee jump from a bridge in Spain was killed in part because of her instructor’s “poor English” Dutch national Vera Mol died in August 2015 when she went bungee jumping with a group of teenagers outside Cabezón de la Sal The teenager died when she jumped from a road bridge before her rope had been secured to anything “The use of the poor English ‘no jump’ could perfectly well be understood as an explicit order to jump by the victim,” the judgement read Vera’s death could have been avoided had the instructor used the phrase “don’t jump”, the court heard, which is reportedly the correct terminology, according to the Daily Mail. The judges on the case added that the instructor should also have checked the teenager’s ID that she was over the age of 18. It was also alleged that bungee jumping from the road bridge is banned under Spanish regulation. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies The ad-free version is ready for purchase on iOS mobile app today we couldn't find that page";var n=e.querySelector("h2");return n&&n.remove(),{staticContent:e,title:t}},d=function(e){var t=document.createElement("button");return t.innerText=e,t.classList.add("error-page-button"),t},f=function(e){var t=document.createElement("div");t.id="recirculation-404",t.classList.add("brand-hint-bg");var n="\n \n \n Tick here if you would like us to send you the author’s response A second tourist has been killed while bungee jumping in Spain just weeks after a British woman died after leaping off a bridge plunged from a viaduct and landed in a dry river bed 40 metres below Emergency services battled to try and save the girl The accident happened yesterday evening at the arched viaduct in Cedeja which is at the height of a picturesque location known as the Virgen de la Peña in the vicinity of Cabezón de la Sal Officials said the Dutch teenager was not properly secured to the harness when she jumped Psychologists had to be called in to treat her distraught friends who witnessed the tragedy Her death comes just weeks after Kleyo de Abreu from London plunged to her death on July 21 whilst about to make a bungee jump in Lanjaron The 23-year-old holidaymaker is understood to have smashed into a support column after leaping from the bridge and two people have since been charged with manslaughter in the wake of her death both the local Mayor and police chief said they were surprised anyone was bungee jumping off the viaduct as it was a "dangerous" spot The 17-year-old Dutch girl was reported to have been on a camping holiday in Oyambre and was at the viaduct with about a dozen young people Spanish newspapers say they were accompanied by bungee jumping trainers from a multi-adventure company when she fell from the viaduct for an unknown reason Police chief, Joaquín González told El Diario Montanes that he didn't know bungee jumping was carried out at this spot "It is extremely risky," he said Isabel Fernández also expressed surprise "but it seems that sometimes it is practised" An investigation into the girl's death has now been launched There have been about a dozen bungee jumping deaths in Spain since 1989 Story SavedYou can find this story in  My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right The bridge of Cabezon de la Sal in Cantabria A 17-year-old girl who died when she bungy jumped off a bridge in Spain without being tied to the ledge plunged to her death in a mix-up over an instructor's English Vera Mol had a rope attached to her, but it wasn't tied to anything else when she took part in the popular adrenaline-fuelled activity on the bridge of Cabezon de la Sal in Cantabria back in 2015, the Daily Mail reported but his pronunciation was so bad the teenager thought he had said "now jump" so she leapt to her untimely death has appeared in court accused of causing the Dutch girl's death say the instructor should have checked for ID to make sure Vera was 18 years old The court heard how tragic Vera Mol died after the misunderstanding during the jumping process which could have been avoided had the instructor used the phrase "don't jump" as opposed to 'no jump' as was reportedly the correct protocol It is also alleged the bridge was not supposed to be used for bungy jumping under Spanish regulations who run the bungy jumping company which employed the man but Martijn Klom from the company admitted the girl's death was caused by a misunderstanding when she was receiving instructions for the jump He confirmed the girl jumped when she was tied by the rope Pope Francis donated a popemobile for a children's clinic in Gaza.