A man was filmed pretending to swim through the streets of Benidorm after a freak storm turned roads into rivers on Tuesday afternoon. The torrential rain, which began around 3pm, caught tourists by surprise following months of sunshine.
Video footage shows one man playfully swimming through the floodwater, while another clip captures a police car pushing a large green bottle bin back to its original position after it had floated away. Retail manager Andy Forrest, 58, from North Shields, described the scene as 'mad' and 'crazy'. He said: 'We were sitting there quite happy. You could see dark clouds, but then the heavens opened and I saw the water coming down the street. It was just a river.'
Barbu Cornel, known as Gogo, owner of the White Horse pub, filmed the police car pushing the bin. He noted that the rain lasted for a maximum of one hour, adding: 'Ten minutes after that video it was sunny again.' Customers inside his pub enjoyed the spectacle, with one worker filming a friend pretending to swim. Teo Bordis, 47, said: 'They were all in the pub amazed about so much water and were all at the windows filming. The storm came after nearly four months of no rain.'
The severe weather also affected other parts of Spain, including the Balearic Islands, where an emergency plan was activated. In Majorca, more than 22 litres of water per square metre fell in just 10 minutes, with gusts exceeding 90km/h. Motorists were advised to abandon vehicles and move to higher ground. Passengers at Palma Airport faced substantial delays.
Elsewhere in Europe, forecasters warned of 'extremely high rainfall' across the north-central Mediterranean, with possible tornadoes along Italy's western coasts. In Tuscany, cars were submerged, and some residents were forced onto rooftops to escape rising water.
