Six people injured and yachts destroyed after storms batter Spanish islands

Balearic Islands storm

Yachts have been damaged in the storm

Evie Butler

By Evie Butler


Published: 16/08/2024

- 15:36

A storm caused a yatch to brutally capsize

Six people have been taken to hospital to be treated, while 300 others have been evacuated, after a storm hit a popular tourist destination in Spain.

A storm caused a yatch to brutally capsize into rocks in Formentera, an island near Ibiza.


The storm also triggered mass damage across the region as heavy rain and strong winds caused trees and boats to be destroyed.

A fisherman in the tourist hot spot of La Mola went missing after the storm caused heavy wind and rain to sweep across the region.

Balearic Islands storm

Yachts have been damaged in the storm

Fortunately, he was reported to be discovered alive a few hours after he went missing by the Salvamento Maritimo rescue service.

The storm also caused a roof of a supermarket to collapse in Ontinyent due to the heavy rain fall and hail causing 300 people to be evacuated to safety.

A red alert is still in place today in parts of the Balearic Islands as heavy rain is still predicted to fall.

Other parts of the Spain, such as the Catalonia and Valencia regions seem to be the areas most at risk from the heavy rainfall.

Balearic Islands storm

Six people have been injured

Mallorca also remains at high risk onto the early hours of this morning due to further heavy rainfall and hail predicted to fall.

An orange alert is also in place in for Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera due to heavy rainfall predicted.

Strong winds could reach as much as 30mph causing swells to reach up to 2 metres high, causing Mallorca and Menorca to issue a yellow weather warning as the storm will cause heavy showers and thunderstorms in the eastern Mediterranean.

The agency has said the storms are due to “isolated depression at high altitudes”, known in Spain as a DANA, a type of weather phenomenon in which a “pocket” of cold air in the upper atmosphere separates from the main stream and sweeps over a warmer air mass.

The extreme heat in Spain during the first 12 days of the month caused the third highest number of deaths recorded compared to the same time last year according to the Carlos III University in Madrid.

The heat caused a staggering 900 deaths in the first 12 days of August this year, with August 2018, seeing the record number, where an astonishing 1,126 people died.

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