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THE storm which lashed the Balearics early yesterday morning saw more than 5'000 bolts of lightning between 6pm on Thursday and 6am yesterday, and caused the sinking of two yachts. The storm mainly affected Ibiza and Formentera and caused many marine incidents including the sinking of two yachts in Ibiza, although nobody was hurt.
A violent storm, accompanied by a great deal of lightning, raged during the early hours of yesterday morning in the south west area of the Balearics causing a very rough sea which mainly affected Ibiza and Formentera. A spokesperson for the Balearic Meteorological Centre explained that, between midnight and 6am, around 1'500 flashes of lightning were recorded within a radius of some 90 kilometres around Ibiza, nearly all of them over the sea. The rest were recorded over the rest of the Balearics. The strength of the storm made the sea extremely rough, causing large waves in Cala San Vicente (Majorca).
It was in this area that the worst incident occured, the sinking of a yacht with six crew on board, according to the 112 emergency service, who said that there had been at least 10 incidents in Ibiza involving boats. The shipwrecked yacht in Cala San Vicente 14 metres long, suffered a leak caused by the storm. According to sources from the Marine Rescue Service, after suffering the leak the yacht repeatedly struck rocks, causing the boat to be “totally destroyed”. Marine Rescue sent a lifeboat and a helicopter, at the same time putting out a radio message for help, answered by two boats in the area which recovered the crew safe and sound. The other yacht sank in Cala Sant Miquel, but this time there was nobody on board.
According to the same sources, more than 10 yachts had been run aground, mainly in Ibiza and Formentera, but without causing danger to their crews. As there is no risk of contamination and nobody was hurt, the yachts will have to be recovered by specialist companies. There were also minor incidents in Majorca and Minorca.
The ferry “Zurbaran”, owned by Acciona Transmediterranea, which should have arrived in Palma at 7.30am from Valencia and which suffered a leak in its engines a few miles just off Palmanova, had now been repaired. The bad weather also forced the cancellation of Balearia's ferry the “Ramon Llull.”