Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in the Costa del Sol region of southern Spain after a red weather alert was issued for extreme rain and flooding. Spain's Civil Protection Agency sent a mass alert to phones in Málaga province after 22:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Tuesday evening warning of an "extreme risk of rainfall".

Spain's national weather agency put parts of the eastern Valencia region under the highest alert level for rain on Wednesday, two weeks after floods killed more than 200 people there.

Spain closed schools and evacuated residents as heavy rains lashed the country Wednesday, two weeks after its worst floods in a generation killed more than 200 people.The rain also meant schools and universities closed across large parts of Valencia,