Spanish floods claim first victim as towns are engulfed

At least one person was killed when rivers burst their banks in northern Spain, engulfing cars and flooding homes and roads.

Heavy snow that fell in the Navarra and Basque regions thawed and Storm Barra dumped weeks of rainfall in a matter of hours.

A hospital in the small Basque town of Mendaro was cut off by flooding.

The centre of Pamplona was accessible only to canoes and kayaks when the River Argal burst its banks

The first casualty of the floods was a man who died inside his vehicle in Sunbilla when a landslide brought down the roof of a farmhouse shed

The River Argal reached levels not seen for 20 years and left houses in the town of Huarte almost completely submerged

The centre of Villava to the west of Huarte was also badly affected, with homes also submerged as far as their roofs

In the Basque town of Mendaro, where the River Deba flooded, residents said the rain had not stopped for 20 days

Officials in Navarra said the rainfall had exceeded all forecasts

In Pamplona, the capital of Navarra, a number of people had to be rescued when they became trapped by rising waters

Rescue officials in Pamplona said the problem was not so much the rainfall as the high river levels

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