BLIZ PAIN IN SPAIN

Historic snowfall kills 4, traps thousands

A historic snowstorm blanketed most of Spain on Saturday, killing at least four people and stranding thousands in cars, airports and train stations.

According to the Spanish newspaper El País, the storm, which arrived Friday night, paralyzed the country’s capital, Madrid, with an unexpectedly heavy snowfall.

The BBC reported that further south, the storm caused rivers to burst their banks. Road, rail and air travel were disrupted across the country.

More than 20 inches of snow fell in Madrid, according to the weather agency AEMET.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, called it “the most intense storm in the last 50 years.”

Two people died after their car was swept away by floods, and two people froze to death, according to Grande-Marlaska: one person in the town of Zarzalejo, northwest of Madrid, and one home in the eastern city of Calatayud.

“The situation in Madrid is very serious,” Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida said in a radio interview. “In terms of mobility, the city is practically immobilized.”

Forecasters had predicted an 8-inch snowfall, but by 7 a.m., the national weather agency said it had recorded the highest 24-hour snowfall in Madrid since 1971.

Around noon, many streets were still blocked, making it impossible for ambulances and fire crews to move around the city.

In the afternoon, more than half of Spain’s provinces remained on alert, according to The Associated Press.

According to AEMET, some regions were expecting more than 24 hours of continuous snowfall, as a result of a cold air mass stagnant over the Iberian Peninsula in addition to the arrival from the south of the storm.

The storm was also expected to bring a cold snap, which could potentially translate into an even more problematic scenario for large areas of the southwestern European nation.

“[The] snow is going to turn into ice and we will enter a situation perhaps more dangerous than what we have at the moment,” warned Transport Minster José Luis Ábalos.

On Twitter, King Felipe and Queen Letizia urged residents to exercise “extreme caution against the risks of ice and snow accumulation.”

People walk during a heavy snowfall in downtown Madrid on Saturday. A persistent blizzard has blanketed large parts of Spain, halting traffic and leaving thousands trapped in cars or in train stations and airports that suspended all services.