MADRID (AP) – The Spanish capital, Madrid, was still trying to recover on Monday after 50 years of record snowfall that paralyzed large parts of central Spain and made it difficult to deliver coronavirus vaccines.
The snowstorm poured more than 50 centimeters (20 inches) of snow in some areas and a cold front turned that fluffy snow into layers of ice and scoured drifts. At least 700 roads were still not clear enough to run without chains.
Temperatures were expected to drop to as low as 11 degrees Celsius (12 degrees Fahrenheit) in a large area of the country later Monday, according to the national meteorological agency AEMET, which forced authorities to urge people to be careful.
“We have some very complicated days ahead until the cold subsides,” Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said at a televised press conference. “Any avoidable movement must be postponed, for safety and not to interrupt the works of the road network.”
A new batch of 350,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine that Spain was expecting arrived at half a dozen airports on Monday, but doses destined for Madrid had to be diverted to the northern city of Vitoria.
The representative of the central government in Madrid, José Manuel Franco, told Onda Cero radio that the pharmaceutical company was working hard to ensure that doses of the capital arrived on the surface at a logistics center. Authorities said earlier that police escorts would help vaccines pass through snow-blocked streets and roads.
In Madrid, military and civil protection battalions, aided by snowplows and excavators, managed to clean the lanes for ambulances and emergency vehicles. However, much of the city’s main services remained closed on Monday, including the main wholesale market, although some supermarkets and kiosks opened for the first time in three days.
Residents, some with crampons and hiking poles, cautiously tried to make their way over the icy snow before disappearing into subway stations.
The underground railway system has become the only viable way to get to work, leading to scenes of overcrowding in train cars where it was impossible to maintain social distance. Commuter trains in Madrid and the high-speed train between Barcelona and Madrid will resume on Monday, according to the national railway company Renfe.
The airport, which had been closed since Friday evening, saw a dozen flights take off or land on Monday and hoped to increase operations.
Schools closed on Monday in the regions of Castilla La Mancha, Madrid and many other areas.
Storm Filomena left four people dead and trapped more than 1,500 people in their vehicles, some of them for up to 24 hours. It has since moved east.