MADRID: A storm in Spain killed four people, paralysed travel and blanketed the capital Madrid in so much snow on Saturday that skiers took to the main Gran Via thoroughfare.
Forecasters warned of more havoc next week after Storm Filomena brought the heaviest snowfall in decades across central Spain.
In the Madrid area, rescuers reached 1,500 people trapped in cars, while on the usually traffic-clogged Gran Via, residents snowboarded and pelted each other with snowballs as well as ski.
“It is astonishing, we have never seen anything like it before,” said Marcos, 30.
One man and a woman in a car drowned after a river burst near Malaga in the south, while two homeless people froze to death in Madrid and Calatayud in the east, officials said.
“I want to reiterate the government’s call for maximum caution in the face of the evolution of the weather in the next few hours,” tweeted Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Julian Morcillo, of the State Metereological Agency (Aemet), said…