Barcelona closes parks this Sunday and reviews 300 schools to open on Monday

Mayor Jaume Collboni announces the preventive closure of parks and gardens due to the risk of landslides and falling trees. Municipal services are reviewing the 300 educational centres and will communicate by 8 PM whether they can reopen normally.

The heavy rains that have battered Barcelona this weekend have forced the City Council to take preventive measures. Mayor Jaume Collboni has announced the closure of all parks and gardens in the city for this Sunday to avoid risks arising from landslides or falling trees.

The decision was made after municipal services detected that the ground is very saturated and that there are green areas with potential danger. Throughout the day, maintenance teams will inspect the condition of the trees and structures to be able to reopen the spaces to the public on Monday, provided that conditions allow.

In parallel, the council is reviewing the 300 educational centres in the city to ensure they can open normally on Monday. Collboni explained that by 8 PM, information collected about the state of the schools will be announced.

"To be able to inform families that they can return to schools normally," detailed the mayor, who added that this will be the case in the vast majority of instances.

The rain has also caused incidents in the electricity supply. A total of 1,400 residents from 9 neighbourhoods have been left without power, and the City Council has contacted Endesa to request a "quick and immediate" solution.

In the health sector, there has been an incident in the neonatal area of Vall d'Hebron Hospital due to flooding, although according to Collboni, it has not resulted in "any critical situation" and normalcy will gradually be restored.

The city's 15 rainwater reservoirs have reached 100% of their capacity, and in some cases, have exceeded it. They are now being gradually emptied starting from those in the upper part of the city, and then the ones in the lower part will be emptied.

The average precipitation recorded in the Catalan capital has been 147 litres per square metre, with a maximum of 203 litres per square metre in the rain gauge of the Sants neighbourhood. The Firefighters have received 903 calls and have made 145 outings by 7:30 AM.