JAKARTA - A number of schools, roads and train lines in Madrid, Spain were closed, while air traffic slowed down, due to bad weather as Hurricane Kristin hit the Iberian Peninsula.
Several schools in the Spanish capital sent messages to parents asking them to pick up their children or telling them that classes would be canceled because teachers could not go to work.
Meanwhile, roads around Madrid were jammed in the middle of the morning as people tried to get home. The car-sharing app sent messages to users saying vehicles were unavailable due to snow.
Although the snow only left a thin layer of snow in some neighborhoods of Madrid, and only wet roads in other parts of the city, the snow was thicker in the suburbs that have higher elevations, as reported by Anadolu from Bloomberg (28/1).
This brings back memories of the severe Filomena storm that paralyzed the city in 2021, where the snow thickness at that time reached more than 20 inches.
Further north, snow has caused damage in several parts of the country. In Portugal, strong winds have caused about 1 million people to lose power.
Wind gusts and rain also disrupted train traffic in parts of southern Andalusia and western Extremadura.
Meanwhile, for the Madrid region, the government estimates that the situation will improve during the day.
In most countries, drivers are advised to be cautious and avoid unnecessary travel due to poor road conditions, the Civil Protection agency said.
State weather service Aemet issued a red alert for gale-force winds equivalent to a hurricane in parts of Extremadura and eastern Andalusia, while Madrid was under a yellow alert.
The storm hit the country months after most of mainland Spain suffered hours-long power outages, leaving around 50 million people in Spain and Portugal without electricity on April 28.
Thick snow and ice are also expected in the southern Alps, where authorities have issued an orange warning and warned of a high risk of avalanches.
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