Heaps of plastic rubbish bags were piled up alongside snowdrifts in downtown Madrid on Wednesday after a historic storm paralysed the city’s infrastructure, leaving some 9,000 tonnes of uncollected waste lining its streets.
MADRID (AP) Emergency crews in central Spain cleared 500 roads and rescued over 1,500 people stranded in their vehicles, allowing Madrid and other areas on
1:32 AM MYT MADRID, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) Almost 48 hours after Storm Filomena swept through central and eastern Spain depositing around half a meter of snow in almost 30 hours of continuous snowfall, the country is still struggling to return to normality. Schools in the capital Madrid, which remains one of the regions worst affected by the snow, remain closed until Tuesday, with the city s Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida saying in a TV interview that the closure could be extended a further day due to the difficulties the snow has caused to communications. The high-speed train link between Madrid and Barcelona was only reopened at 2 p.m. on Monday. The country s Minister of Transport Jose Luis Abalos confirmed in the early afternoon that two runways at Madrid s Barajas Adolfo Suarez Airport were operating, with members of Spain s Emergency Military Response Unit (UME) working with airport employees to clear other runways.
The effects of winter storm Filomena were felt in 36 of Spain's 50 provinces, with heavy snowfall paralyzing the capital city of Madrid. The historic storm has left three people dead.