A flash flood and landslide triggered by torrential rain struck a small village in northwestern Spain on Saturday evening, killing two elderly women and injuring two babies. The disaster occurred in Manzanedo de Valdueza, a mountain hamlet of roughly twenty inhabitants in the province of León, part of the autonomous region of Castile and León in Spain's interior northwest. Emergency services confirmed the deaths of women aged approximately 60 and 80, while a third person initially reported missing — a man in his 80s — was later found unharmed.
According to local authorities, the six people caught in the disaster were sheltering in a wine cellar when torrential rain triggered a surge of stones, mud and sludge through the village. Two babies, believed to be relatives of the deceased women, sustained bruises and received medical treatment. Firefighters, police, ambulances and the Civil Guard responded to the scene, with a rescue helicopter deployed to navigate the surrounding hilly, forested terrain. Footage and images from the site showed cars swept away and a grey mass of mud and stones coating the village. Damage also extended to the neighbouring village of Bouzas, where vehicles were swept away though no injuries were reported.
Marco Morala, the mayor of nearby Ponferrada — the second-largest city in León province — described the trigger as "fierce storms in the hills" that unleashed a powerful flow of debris into the valley below.
The flooding comes as a stark contrast to the extreme weather Spain has been contending with in recent weeks. León province, where Saturday's disaster occurred, was among the areas most severely affected by wildfires in 2025, a record year for hectares burned across Spain as tracked by the European Forest Fire Information System. The juxtaposition of devastating fires followed swiftly by deadly floods underscores the increasingly volatile weather patterns the country is experiencing.
Scientists have previously linked worsening wildfire and storm conditions in Spain and neighbouring France to climate change. The back-to-back nature of this summer's extreme weather events — from record-burning wildfires in the south to fatal flash floods in the northwest — highlights the mounting pressure on Spanish emergency services and the growing vulnerability of rural communities to rapid-onset natural disasters.