What a night

Fire stations across the Balearics received over 1'000 emergency calls in the early hours of yesterday morning as the region was lashed by heavy rain and storms. Across Majorca yesterday people woke to scenes of chaos and flooding after a night of some of the heaviest rainfall in years. In Palma two roofs caved in, a road bridge over the Arenal to Lluchmajor road has to be closed for safety reasons and firemen were called in to a Palma hotel for fear that part of the building was about to collapse. It was a similar story across the island with trees, traffic lights and lamp posts being brought down by the storms and widespread damage being caused to properties and farms, many of the latter being left under several feet of water. The Balearic Met Office said yesterday that between 11pm on Thursday night and 6am yesterday morning, up to 150 metres of rain fell per square metre and at times, 15 litres fell in just 10 minutes.