On Tuesday, the extremely low temperatures that swept through certain areas in central and eastern Spain reached record levels, and extensive freezing made it more difficult to clear countless snow-blocked roads.
After the worst blizzard in decades, most of the country is still covered in snow, and despite the severe cold, people are still working hard to remove snow, ice and fallen trees. When the storm Philomena swept the country over the weekend, at least three people died.
Barcelona confirmed on Tuesday that two other homeless people were found dead, with various signs that they had died of hypothermia. AEMET,the State Meteorological Agency said that overnight, the temperature in central and eastern Spain dropped sharply, reaching the lowest temperature of 25.4 degrees Celsius (-13.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the village of Belo between Madrid and Barcelona.
A reporter from Agence France-Presse reported that the overnight freezing stopped water in some streets of the capital. According to the local government, the Spanish state-owned water company Canal de Isabel II has repaired 2,000 of the 3,600 service outages in the Madrid area.
Officials said that due to extreme restrictions on travel on weekends, supermarkets have insufficient supplies of fresh produce, but Madrid’s huge main food market, Mercadade, will reopen on Tuesday.