Child died, 28 injured in tennis ball-sized hail in Spain

The Catalan city of La Bisbal del Ampurdão on Tuesday experienced the strongest heavy hailstorm, which injured about 30 people, according to SpanishNewsToday. Most suffered broken bones, head injuries and ice cuts due to hailstone impacts with a diameter of 10 cm, which required sutures. The one-year-old girl died in Girona hospital a few hours after she was taken there in a critical condition. The nationality of the child and the circumstances under which the hail fell on her are still unknown.

Meteorologists in Catalonia said that the hail was the largest in the last twenty years. The record largest hail in world history was the one that fell in the city of Viviana in the US state of South Dakota in 2010: individual hailstones were 20 cm in diameter and weighed about 900 grams. As for the consequences, the most serious was the hail that hit the Indian city of Moradabad in 1888: orange-sized hailstones killed almost 250 people.

Tourists who are visiting Spain now are being warned that the chances of tropical cyclones, which form over warm sea surfaces and are accompanied by powerful thunderstorms, remain high. This year, the risk has increased due to record heat and rising sea temperatures - a consequence of global warming. Three years ago, in September 2019, heavy rains, thunderstorms and floods that hit the provinces of Alicante and Murcia claimed the lives of seven people.