35-year-old woman dies trying to cross river with her children amid torrential rains in Spain

MADRID - A woman died after she was swept away trying to cross a river in torrential rain in Spain's northeastern Catalonia region, authorities said on Sunday, bringing to five the death toll from heavy rain and flooding over the past 15 days.

The 35-year-old was swept away in Cabrera de Mar, about 27 kilometers (17 miles) north of Barcelona, as she tried to cross a river with her children on Saturday night, despite warnings not to go near waterways.

Óscar Fernández, the Cabrera de Mar mayor, told reporters on Sunday that the woman had been to see a basketball match at which people were asked not to leave the municipal facility because of the torrential rain.

Roads were closed and train services reduced, as Catalan authorities warned residents not to travel unnecessarily.

The woman's body was found on Sunday by rescuers in the sea, the Civil Protection Service said.

Flooding is becoming more frequent across Europe as the atmosphere warms and holds more moisture due to climate change, scientists say. Spain has been particularly hard hit.

Valencia and Alicante in the country's southeast and Almeria in the south have also been affected by torrential rains which flooded homes, washed away cars and closed roads.

"It started raining, it was fast. This stream carried a lot of water and it filled up really fast. The problem was that there were cars in the middle of the highway. It washed them away,” Beatriz Mendoza, who owns a commercial greenhouse in Almeria which was destroyed by the rain, told Canalsur, a local television station on Sunday.

In August, a flood and landslide caused by torrential rain killed two elderly women near Pontevedra in rural northwestern Spain, as seven regions were placed on yellow alert for storms and heavy rain.

The flooding followed weeks of record high temperatures that led to a series of devastating wildfires.

-Graham Keeley and Nina Lopez; Editing by Christina Fincher/Reuters