Death toll in Europe from storm rises to eight

MADRID - 22 December 2019: The death toll from a storm that battered Spain, Portugal and France rose to eight on Saturday as the region braced for more violent winds and heavy rain.

A 32-year-old South Korean woman died Saturday, a day after being struck on the head by falling debris from a building in central Madrid, the Madrid region's interior minister said.

The building had passed an inspection in 2015 "but weather like this, with heavy rain and wind, causes these fateful cases", Enrique Lopez told reporters.

A man died Saturday after his car was swept away by a swollen river near the town of Huescar in the southern province of Granada, the regional government of Andalusia said in a statement.

Emergency services in Andalusia said a 68-year-old Dutchman who went missing while windsurfing in rough weather in Huelva province Friday had drowned.

Those three deaths bring to eight to the number of fatalities from the storm that has battered Spain, Portugal, and southern France overnight Thursday to Friday.

Storm Elsa flooded rivers, brought down power lines and disrupted rail and air travel across the region.

Six of the deaths have been in Spain and two in Portugal, where the extreme weather interrupted train services Saturday between the capital Lisbon and the second city Porto due to flooding on the rail tracks.