A freak hailstorm unleashed golf ball-sized ice on the north-eastern Spanish city of Tarragona on Monday, leaving streets littered with dead birds, flooding neighbourhoods and triggering more than 1,000 emergency calls. Torrential rain and violent hail battered the Catalan port city, knocking out electricity supplies and causing severe flash flooding.
Video footage circulating online showed a man being swept along a submerged street while another clip captured the roof of a shopping centre collapsing under the weight of water and ice. Dozens of pigeons and other birds lay dead across pavements and roads after being struck by the large hailstones. Residents described the animals plummeting from the sky as the storm intensified.
Residents describe birds falling from the sky
One Tarragona Port resident told The Sun: “The birds didn’t have time to protect themselves and they were victims of the violent storm that hit the area with intense rain, strong gusts of wind and lightning.”
Emergency services struggled to respond as the extreme weather overwhelmed the city. Power cuts left parts of Tarragona in darkness while floodwater poured through streets and buildings. The storm’s intensity caught many off guard, with the combination of heavy rain, high winds and oversized hail creating hazardous conditions across the area.
French tornado injures dozens in Pomas
The Spanish chaos followed a destructive tornado that tore through the southern French village of Pomas on Monday evening. That storm injured at least 41 people, including a pregnant woman whose home partially collapsed.
Around 300 houses were damaged or destroyed in the village of roughly 1,000 residents south of Carcassonne. Roofs were ripped off, trees toppled and debris scattered across streets. Winds of up to 121km/h (75mph) were recorded nearby, according to Météo-France.
Emergency response and widespread disruption
French authorities deployed 120 emergency workers to Pomas, where residents who lost their homes were housed in a nearby holiday park. Fifteen people from the village required hospital treatment. Flights from Bordeaux, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse and Paris faced delays or cancellations as hail and flooding disrupted transport networks. More than 2,800 homes remained without power late on Monday night.
Most of south-western France had been placed on orange alert for storms earlier in the day. By midnight the majority of regions were downgraded to yellow, though Corsica remained on orange alert with forecasts of heavy rain, hail and gusts reaching 130km/h heading towards Italy.
Spain’s hailstorm and the French tornado formed part of a broader bout of severe weather sweeping parts of western Europe. In Tarragona the immediate focus remained on clearing flooded streets, restoring power and dealing with the unusual and distressing sight of dead birds covering parts of the city. Local officials continued assessing the full extent of damage on Tuesday as clean-up operations got under way.
