Lisbon, 7 Feb. (Adnkronos) – The Portuguese far right has called for the postponement of the second round of the presidential elections due to the heavy rains and winds that continued to hit some areas of Spain and Portugal, causing at least two deaths and forcing the evacuation of over 7,000 people. The Chega party said the vote should be postponed as a state of disaster had been declared in 69 areas. Storm Leonardo, which hit the Iberian Peninsula this week, forced the Portuguese government to extend the current state of disaster in 69 municipalities until mid-February. The storm killed a man in Portugal, while yesterday the body of a woman was found swept away by a river in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia. It is the latest in a series of deadly storms to hit Portugal and Spain in recent weeks, killing several people. Authorities in Andalusia, where more than 7,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, evacuated residential areas near the Guadalquivir river in Cordoba overnight and pedestrian traffic was blocked on the city’s Roman bridge. “We expect 30 mm of rain,” said Andalusia regional president Juan Manuel Moreno. “In other circumstances there would be little water, but at the moment it is a lot, because the land cannot drain and the rivers and reservoirs are full.” Around 1,500 residents were ordered to abandon their homes in Grazalema, a mountain village popular with hikers, as water seeped through the walls of houses and poured down steep cobbled streets. Moreno told Cadena Ser radio that aquifers in the Grazalema mountains were full and that the built-up pressure could cause landslides. “This could cause large holes or ditches. If this happened under a house or road, the consequences could be dramatic,” he added. During a visit to a coordination post in the Andalusian province of Cadiz, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez yesterday warned that “complicated days” lie ahead and called for caution and calm. It said 10,000 emergency workers had been deployed to provide assistance across the region, adding that the central government was coordinating the response with Andalusia’s regional government.
date: 2026-02-07 10:09:00