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by Staff Reporter
AT least 5'000 people were affected by power failure during the storms which hit the Balearics for the second day running, causing flooding and traffic problems across the islands.

A spokesman for the power company Gesa-Endesa said that there were nine incidents in Majorca between 11am and 2pm, most of them caused by lightning strikes.

The spokesman said that although the main lines were practically “back to normal” there had been nearly 300 breakdowns in low tension cables, which the control centre cannot detect and only learns about when customers contact the company. Most of the incidents lasted only a couple of minutes and occurred in rural areas. They included Andratx, Valldemossa, Sa Cabaneta, Esporlas, Petra and Muro. Palma's Son Sant Joan airport was on a state of alert because of the rain, which caused delays in 12 arrivals and 20 departures. The average time of the delays was about 40 minutes.

In Palma, the rain was not as heavy as it had been yesterday, and there were no major incidents. In the rest of the island, the fire brigade was called out to 15 or so incidents, most of them caused by trees falling in Calvia, Andratx, Campos and Felanitx.

The firemen also had to pump water from basements and rescue one person who was trapped in a lift in Cala Rajada (Capdepera).
Robin Musters reports that in Puerto Portals, a ten metre yacht dragged its moorings in the wind and landed up on the rocks in front of Marineland, and two ski boats also came on to the beach, but without damage.

The weather will continue to be unsettled today, with cloudy intervals, intermittent rain and storms, and occasional showers of hailstones. Night time temperatures will continue to go down, and daytime temperatures will remain stable.