In the evening on Saturday, Aemet (the state weather agency) raised the alert to red (the highest level) in the Axarquía area, where rainfall was extremely heavy.

The warning in Malaga city switched from yellow to amber and the El Palo district bore the brunt of it. In the eastern district, Adam dumped up to 60mm in half an hour and 120mm in an hour, much to the surprise of local residents.

The sudden, unexpected downpour turned streets into rivers and, as videos posted on social media show, affected many homes. According to sources from the emergency services, they received 50 calls reporting fallen trees and flooding of ground floors, basements, garages and the public sewerage system in El Palo alone.

In addition, the DGT (traffic authority) reported that the Montes road (the MA-3101) had closed in both directions at kilometres 1 and 25 due to landslides.

This Sunday, El Palo residents are busy clearing up. Some public services have had to be adjusted or relocated, such as the A&E department at the El Palo health centre, which has temporarily moved to the Cruz de Humilladero health centre, where patients will receive the necessary care.

"I've just got home. I was caught out in El Palo. I managed to pull the car up onto the pavement and avoided any trouble," Cristina Pérez said on social media, having witnessed the downpour first-hand in the early hours of this morning. She said that a couple of residents, Carlos and Sofía, helped her out of her car, gave her towels and dry clothes, took her into their home and even offered her to spend the night there if she couldn't get back home.

Intense lightning and torrential rain accompanied the storm. According to Aemet, there were almost 6,000 lightning strikes in Andalucía, the vast majority of which in the bay of Malaga. They flooded homes and premises in the area in the early hours of the morning. Fortunately, the storm did not last long and soon began to ease, which prevented further damage.

The Hidrosur network's rain gauge in La Araña recorded a total of 71mm during the early hours of the morning on Sunday. The next highest rainfall figure Hidrosur recorded was quite far: 61mm in Cañete La Real, followed by Los Montes de Málaga (Santón Pitar, 43mm) and Cortes de la Frontera (42mm).

By contrast, Hidrosur's rain gauge at Paseo de la Farola, just five kilometres away, recorded only 31mm.

In response to the increasing intensity of the rainfall, Aemet issued a red alert for the Axarquía shortly after midnight and until 3am. The warning for the rest of the province switched to amber, with the sole exception of the Antequera area. The warning indicated heavy downpours of over 60mm in an hour. In El Palo, this amount was recorded in just 30 minutes.

By late afternoon on Saturday, the accumulated rainfall in the Serranía de Ronda and the Guadalteba area had exceeded 40mm. The town of Ronda was dealing with several incidents of flooding. The area remained under an amber warning for rainfall until midnight. The warning reactivated at 12pm on Sunday and will remain in place until 10pm.

For this Sunday, Aemet is maintaining yellow and amber alerts across the province until 10pm.

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