Boy, 9, drowns as floods sweep southern Spain

Police Wednesday recovered the body of a nine-year-old boy who went missing after the car he was travelling in was swept away by floodwaters that have hit southern Spain, national radio said.

The boy’s father and his elder brother were able to escape from the vehicle which was swept into the river Alcudia near the south-central town of Almodovar del Campo in the Castilla-La Mancha region on Tuesday evening, the radio said.

It said his body was found on a river bank about one kilometre (two miles) from where the car fell into the water.

His death brings to two the number of people killed from the storms that have battered southern Spain and Portugal since Saturday.

A 31-year-old man died on Tuesday when his television exploded after it was struck by lightning in a farmhouse in the southern town of Arroyo del Ojanco, in the Andalucia region.

The flooding has blocked dozens of roads and forced the evacuation on Tuesday of some 3,000 people in the Andalucian town of Ecija after the river Genil burst its banks.

The situation was starting to return to normal Wednesday, although the national meteorological agency maintained alerts in southwestern parts of Andalucia.