After months of drought parts of Spain have been hit by intense rainfall that has led to flash floods.
Popular holiday spots in the country have been impacted as Madrid, the capital of Murcia, has experienced dramatic weather, with Valencia also hit by deluges following a long dry spell.
The rainfall has turned some streets into rivers in Murcia, caused buildings to flood, submerged cars and led to countless road closures across southern parts of the country. Emergency services have been battling to drain streets were water levels have been creeping higher as higher as the period of bad weather continues.
Some locations in the Valencia region saw more rainfall during a few days last week than they did in the previous six months, according to national weather agency AEMET.
The town of Ontinyent recorded the highest rainfall in one day for more than 100 years. A total of 130 litres per square metre fell in 24 hours, much of it running off ground baked hard by a long period of furious heat.
Another area which has been badly hit is Catalonia in the north. Villages in the north-east of the region were left flooded and streets covered in ice and hail following a storm on Wednesday.
Madrid endured more rain fell in a few short hours than in months before, resulting in a number of distress calls being made across the capital, where the clouds had not opened for months until the end of last week.
Fifteen people were rescued after their cars were swept away by the waters in Murcia, where schools were shut to try and minimise risk to the public.
The flooding that took place throughout last week claimed at least 14 lives as 21 rivers spilt over their banks. There were at least 300 landslides triggered across the country as rain continued to fall upon hardened terrain.
The wet weather is set to continue throughout this week in areas including Madrid and Valencia, according to the Met Office, although conditions are set to be less severe than the previous seven days.
Between mid-April and early May, the drought in the country was acute in part due to the unseasonably high temperatures, with the governments of various regions taking action to try and avoid a catastrophic harvest.
According to Spanish outlet Infobae, "all of this seems to be part of the distant past because in the last few weeks the umbrella, the raincoat and the wellington boots have become essential garments for a large part of the Spanish citizens."
More than 800 firefighters were sent out to tackle the emergency in Valencia alone, responding to 300 distress calls from citizens.
Climate change is making intense weather events such as the historical drought and historical rainfall in Spain more and more common, with potentially devastating effect on people's lives and livelihoods.
Earlier this month scientists warned that the world is almost certain to experience new record temperatures in the next five years, and that temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The predicted annual mean global near-surface temperature for 2023-2027 is estimated to be 1.1°C-1.8°C higher than the 1850-1900 average, when there were very few human released greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
This is of particular concern next year, when the global weather event El Niño switches back on for the first time in three years, likely raising temperatures to unbearable levels in some parts of the world.
