Brutal storms batter Costa Blanca as cars are submerged and streets turn to rivers in Brit holiday hotspots

From the Newshound archive · first published 20 September 2026.

Intense storms hit Spain's Costa Blanca on Saturday morning, with some areas of the Alicante coastline recording up to 50 litres of rain per square metre in the space of a few hours. Alicante and Benidorm were among the popular holiday resorts to bear the brunt of the weather, as roads were overwhelmed by surging water and a waterspout was spotted spinning near Denia. The downpour arrived just two days after a British man died in flash flooding close to Barcelona. AEMET, Spain's national weather agency, described the storms as tightly concentrated but extraordinarily powerful.

Videos circulating online captured scores of cars trapped in thick, muddy floodwater alongside containers that had been swept into the flow of traffic.

Firefighters were called to Orihuela after lightning ignited a palm tree.

A yellow alert covering Lorca, Cartagena and San Javier remains active following the downgrade from an orange warning.