Break in the heavy rain brings slight relief to Portugal and Spain

A pause in the recent severe weather has brought some welcome relief to Portugal and Spain.

Although it was expected to remain mostly dry on Sunday and the sun was shining, large areas of both countries are still underwater after the passage of storm Marta on Saturday.

Water levels in many rivers are still high reservoirs had to release water in a controlled manner. Thousands of evacuees were housed in emergency shelters and the risk of landslides remained high, the state TV stations of both countries, RTVE and RTP, reported.

From Sunday evening, the weather services of both countries predict more rainfall, although probably less heavy than on previous days.

Marta was the seventh storm since the beginning of the year and brought with it heavy rain, gale-force winds and high waves on the coasts of Portugal and Andalusia in southern Spain.

The region was hit by storm Leonardo on Wednesday and Thursday. In Spain, a woman died in a river in the Málaga area. In Portugal, a total of 13 people have died in a series of storms since last week and hundreds have been injured during the clean-up operation.

The military was called in to support the civil defence forces in both Portugal and Spain, with the damage to infrastructure and agriculture estimated at more than €7 billion ($9.6 billion).

One advantage of the rainfall is that, despite extreme heat and drought, there should not be the usual water shortage in the coming summer because the region's reservoirs are now full.