Madrid, Spain (Reuters) — A 20-month-old girl has died after being hit on the head during a violent hail storm that wreaked havoc in Catalonia, northeastern Spain, authorities said Wednesday.
On Tuesday it rained hail the size of a fist, up to 10 centimeters in diameter, in the surroundings of the town of La Bisbal d’Empordà. The hail caused injuries, mainly broken bones and bruises, to some 50 other people, the TV3 network said.
“People started screaming and hiding,” said musician Sicus Carbonell, who filmed the aftermath of the storm at Castell d’Emporda, a nearby hotel where his band was playing on a tarp-covered terrace when everyone was forced. run to protect themselves.
“There was chaos, with little boys and girls running around alone, some parents were able to take their children,” he told Reuters.
“There was a girl about three or four years old who was not sheltering under the umbrella. I ran out and grabbed her,” he said.
“Then a hail came through the fabric … and I told my group that either we went into the restaurant or one of those tennis balls would hit us and we wouldn’t count it.”
The girl who was hit in the head by hail in La Bisbal d’Emporda died at the Trueta hospital in Girona, according to the authorities of that town.
The hail is the largest recorded in two decades in Catalonia, according to the Meteocat weather agency. Some areas of the region were still on alert for storms on Wednesday.
