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No part of Spain was left untouched by Storm Ciarán, which has resulted in dozens of cancelled flights, delayed trains, road detours and even the death of a young woman in Madrid when a tree branch fell on her.

 

The Region of Murcia was also fairly ravaged on Thursday November 2 and before 9pm, the Emergency Coordination Centre had already received 233 calls alerting them to hundreds of issues related to the hurricane-like winds and treacherous seas.

 

The most calls were recorded at the peak of the storm, between 2pm and 3pm, and the majority of these related to obstacles in the road, such as felled branches (83) and landslides (60). Murcia was undoubtedly the hardest hit municipality, reporting 50 incidents, followed by Lorca (25) and Cehegín (14).

 

Unsurprisingly, the coasts were battered and in Cartagena the violent southwesterly winds prevented two cruise ships, carrying 2,700 excited tourists, from docking at Juan Sebastián Elcano. Twenty huge ships transporting goods were also forced to seek shelter in the port and the fishing fleet had to pull in its nets as the 70 kilometre per hour winds raised the waves to a perilous four metres.

 

The rest of the city didn’t exactly get off lightly: central parks were closed due to the danger of falling trees and traffic signs and advertising billboards blew all over the roads. City councils up and down the country advised motorists to avoid driving if at all possible and in Murcia four people were injured in a crash between Yecla and Pinoso due to the poor visibility.

 

One of them, a 23-year-old woman, was trapped inside one of the cars and had to be cut free by firefighters.

 

Over in Cieza, firefighters were tasked with removing several large tree branches on La Estación Avenue, Juan XXIII, Calle Santiago and Abarán Highway, although thankfully nobody was injured.

 

Incidents were also recorded in Caravaca de la Cruz, where the gales tore off the weather vane of the Torre de los Pastores, in the church of La Concepción and it crashed into the middle of the street, causing quite a scare.

 

It’s hoped that the worst of the storm is now behind us but the Antiplano and Northwest Murcia remain on yellow alert on Friday November 3 as the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) predicts “very strong gusts of wind towards the end of the day” in these and other areas of the Region.

 

In addition, these gales mean that several other areas are still at very high or extreme risk of forest fires.

 

 

Images: 112 Region de Murcia