Farmers in Spain warned on Saturday that the relentless rain and powerful winds that have flooded farmland in Andalusia will represent losses of up to three billion euros, as Spain and Portugal prepared for further bouts of severe weather.
The Iberian Peninsula has been hit by a series of storms over recent weeks, bringing heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, snowfall and strong gusts, with Storm Marta reaching the region on Saturday. ALSO READ: Body of woman found as 8,000 evacuated in Andalusia with yet another storm looming.
The farmers organisation COAG in Andalusia warned of ‘very serious and growing’ damage caused by the successive spells of rain and wind affecting agriculture and livestock farming across the region.
The organisation estimates that losses assessed by the regional government at 20% of agricultural output already represent an impact of more than three billion euros, and could rise further as the storms have not yet ended.
Miguel Pérez, of the COAG branch in the Cádiz province, told Spanish television TVE on Saturday: ‘It is raining without stopping. Crops like broccoli, carrots and cauliflowers are under water. Thousands of hectares inundated. We have a real natural catastrophe.’
Pérez added that the storm had caused millions of euros in losses to this year’s harvest and said farmers would seek government assistance to help them recover.
In northern Spain, a snowplow operator was killed when his vehicle fell around 20 metres down a slope at the El Pico mountain pass in Ávila (Castilla y León), where heavy snow had been falling, emergency services said.
In southern Spain, now more than 11,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes in the Andalusia region. Nearly 170 roads across the country have been shut, while rail services in Portugal have also been disrupted.
Earlier on Saturday, emergency responders in Portugal said a 46-year-old man drowned in a river in Campo Maior, in the central Portalegre district. Five fatalities have been recorded since Storm Leonardo swept in last week.
Portugal’s agriculture ministry said on Friday that early estimates placed losses in the farming and forestry sectors at about 750 million euros, warning that conditions were expected to worsen in the days ahead.
Spain’s state meteorological agency AEMET said on Saturday that Storm Marta would bring further rainfall, snowfall and dangerous coastal conditions. Authorities issued an orange weather alert, the second-highest level. ALSO READ: Thousands evacuated in Andalusia as Storm Leonardo leaves homes without power, towns cut off.
The saturated ground has also raised concerns about structural instability, including the risk of landslides.
Residents in several towns across the Serranía de Ronda mountain range in Málaga, which was hit hard by Storm Leonardo earlier in the week, said the ground had been shaking for days.
The council of Cortes de la Frontera said in a social media post on Saturday that there was ‘no danger’ from the tremors, which have also been felt in the nearby towns of Benaoján, Gaucín and Jimera de Líbar.
Experts from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) have been sent to the area to monitor the situation.
On Friday, several residential neighbourhoods near the Guadalquivir River in the Córdoba province were evacuated after water levels rose sharply.
Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister María Jesús Montero said the river was expected to reach its highest level on Sunday.
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COAG fija el impacto de las pérdidas en la agricultura andaluza en más de 3.000 millones inicialmente porque los temporales no han acabadohttps://t.co/cHBIleQbER pic.twitter.com/CCZQ00nHQi
— Agroinformacion (@Agroinformacio) February 8, 2026
#Guadalete #ZonaCero #Catástrofe
— COAG CÁDIZ (@CoagCadiz) February 6, 2026
Valoración de Miguel Pérez, secretario provincial de COAG Cádiz, a pie de cultivos inundados en el Jerez rural. pic.twitter.com/A01XspS4SX
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