Continuous heavy rainfall can cause severe flooding in cities. Sewer systems have a limited capacity to absorb and filter water, which becomes overwhelmed by the amount of rain that falls in just a few minutes. Therefore, flooding often occurs in areas affected by intense rainfall. The Madrid metro floods, caused by a DANA (isolated high-level depression), generated much discussion. The consequences were disastrous.
In this article we are going to remember everything that happened with the flooding of the Madrid metro and what repercussions they had.
Situation in Madrid
With widespread traffic chaos, flooded homes, and the closure of sections of the metro due to this morning's heavy rains, Madrid couldn't have started the summer in a worse way . The orange alert for rain and storms (significant risk) remained in effect for the Metropolitan and Henares regions, while the yellow alert (risk) was in place for the rest of the region.
Faced with this situation, the Community of Madrid launched the Special Program for the Protection of Citizens against the Risk of Floods (InunCAM) in the face of the state of alarm. On September 1, the weather conditions were rainy throughout Spain: there were storms and storm warnings in almost all regions, and five communities were on orange alert.
According to the Madrid 112 Emergency Service report, the service processed a total of 237 reports related to storms between midnight and 7:00 a.m. The areas with the most reports in the region were Alpedrete, Valdemoro, Parla, Fuenlabrada, Rivas-Vaciamadrid, and Madrid . The Madrid Community Fire Department responded to 50 incidents, all related to flooding in homes and waterlogged roads. However, none of these were particularly serious.
For their part, the city council's firefighters responded to 58 storm-related incidents , none of them serious. Their main problems involved swimming pools in public areas, houses with leaky roofs, and tree branches that had to be removed due to the strong winds.
Flooding in the Madrid metro
Heavy rains also affected several Madrid metro lines. Line 5 between Pirámides and Oporto stations and Line 9 between Colombia and Plaza de Castilla remained closed early this morning, but service is expected to return to normal in the coming hours. Meanwhile, power outages at several stations on Line 1 and at Rivas Vaciamadrid Station (Line 9) have been resolved.
The storm created a large pool of water in the capital and emergency services cut tunnels in Plaza Carlos V and Santa MarĂa de la Cabeza in the Dominican Republic, resulting in backed up water traffic that had been remedied with the reopening of all the tunnels.
On the C3 and C4 commuter rail lines and at Sol station , some trains had to be diverted through the Recoletos tunnel due to delays of 5 to 10 minutes caused by water in the tunnel. Surface road traffic was also affected. The Municipal Police had to close sections of several roads due to standing water, which impacted EMT bus service. The main areas affected were Manuel Becerra, Princesa, Plaza de España, Génova, and Alberto Aguilera.
Intense showers in Madrid between 8.30:10.00 and 17:19 a.m. left 4 to 17,3 liters of water per square meter in the metropolitan area. According to Rubén del Campo, spokesman for the National Meteorological Service (Aemet), the Retiro Park collected 17,8 liters per square meter, XNUMX liters at the airport and XNUMX liters at the university location.
The showers were sometimes very intense: in the Parque del Retiro and Ciudad Universitaria they reached 6,3 liters in just ten minutes. Although "it was an intense downpour, it was not a record," del Campo clarified, recalling that the worst storm occurred on May 31 with about 17 liters per square meter in 10 minutes.
Madrid metro flood warnings
The first outage notice went on the air after 9:00. “The L2 loop between Ă“pera and Quevedo has been interrupted in both directions due to an accident at the facility,” Metro tweeted. Later, it was reported that line 4 between Lista and Goya was for the same reason. any address. Metro also reported that the trains did not stop at Noviciado (L2), GarcĂa Noblejas (L7), Barrio de la ConcepciĂłn (L7) and Plaza de España (L10 and L3) due to "an incident in the facilities". At that time, the two-way traffic on the L10 between Tribunal and Batán was also interrupted.
At PrĂncipe PĂo station, a Line 10 train remained stationary with no passengers during the service disruption. The platform area is usually quite busy because it's a direct transfer hub between Line 6 and Line 10. Some passengers were asking security guards and Metro staff for the quickest way to reach their destinations via alternative routes.
Shortly after 11.30:10, about twenty passengers who wanted to access line XNUMX at the Plaza de España stop patiently waited for the guards to let them through. It was the last line that needed to be reset. After a radio warning, the seals were removed from the escalators and the situation returned to normal.
flood panorama
With climate change, floods are becoming more frequent due to the increased occurrence of intense storms. It's crucial that every community prepares for these scenarios to minimize potential damage. Local councils have a responsibility to implement risk and damage mitigation plans for floods to prevent tragedies like the Madrid metro floods. Let's hope the storms brought by the DANA (isolated high-level depression) are not as destructive, thus reducing the costs and damage incurred in public spaces and homes.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the flooding of the Madrid metro, its consequences and what was done about it.
