MADRID, July 7 (Xinhua) -- A heavy rainstorm caused chaos on Friday afternoon in and around the Spanish capital of Madrid, leading to flights being diverted, trains being cancelled and flooding on roads in the city and surrounding region.
The storm began around 3:00 p.m. local time, depositing around 30 liters of rain per square meter in less than two hours, the Spanish media reported.
That rain and the continued thunder and lightning led to 24 incoming flights inbound to Madrid's Adolfo Suarez-Barajas airport being diverted to other airports in a 90-minute period between 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.
Meanwhile the rain produced flooding in the airport's Terminal 4 as water poured through numerous leaks in the roof and there was also lesser flooding at the entrance of Terminal 2.
The Spanish railway operator, RENFE, was forced to cancel trains from Madrid to the cities of Avila and Salamanca for the remainder as the result of the line being flooded between the towns of Santa Maria de Alameda and Robledo de Chavela in the north of the region.
Meanwhile roads throughout the capital were flooded, causing long tailbacks as the storm happened at the start of the Friday afternoon rush hour.
The A4 motorway, which links Madrid with the south of Spain was cut by water, while the accesses from the M50 ring road to the A2 motorway which goes to Zaragoza and Barcelona, were also flooded and the M30 ring road was also cut in the north of the capital and traffic affected all over the city.
The fire brigade confirmed they had to make 270 different interventions to deal with rising water levels between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., with several of those interventions in flooded ticket halls in stations of the Madrid Metro, which had its service cut in line 7.
