Holiday in Spain: the Alhambra has reopened. Valencia was hit by a storm with winds of 150 km/h, and 1,800 people are being moved in Ceuta

Slovak and Czech holidaymakers in Spain have three things on Tuesday, August 18, that can completely upend their day plan: the Alhambra in Granada is closed after a morning swarm of earthquakes, together with the cathedral, and its management has not yet said when it will reopen; the Valencia coast and northern Alicante have a red heat warning for Wednesday, with temperatures of 42 to 44 degrees, and Valencia itself is closing both historic city gates and the Saler coastal forest; and in Málaga, four beaches remain closed after Saturday's storm because of the bacterium E. coli. Andalusia is also in the middle of the West Nile virus season, a mosquito-borne illness that has so far recorded 46 confirmed cases and one death. The heat should ease from Thursday: meteorologists expect a widespread change in the weather, rain in the north and in places in the east, and temperatures below the long-term average.

Granada: swarm of tremors, Alhambra and cathedral closed

• 20.08.The Alhambra survived the tremors without damage and without losing visitors. The site management confirmed this after closing it for the whole day on Tuesday - this is the key piece of news for anyone planning a trip to Granada today ABC ↗

• 19.08.Two more tremors arrived late on Tuesday night. First 3.3 and then 3.4, with the epicenter in Ogíjares - again right in the Granada basin. ABC ↗El Mundo ↗
• 19.08.Seismologists are already talking about an "earthquake swarm" that could last for months. "A restless summer awaits us," is how the experts sum it up - this is not a sequence of aftershocks winding down, but an open-ended series. El Mundo ↗
• 19.08.In Granada, concern is growing over buildings that are already damaged. "We cannot predict when the next one will come," experts admit. ABC ↗
• 19.08.A seismic-risk map of Andalusia has been published showing which areas are most exposed to tremors. ABC ↗
• 19.08.Portuguese media are also following the tremors, placing the new 3.4 among the night's main stories. RTP ↗

- 18.08.Andalusian Interior Minister Antonio Sanz tried to calm things in the evening: "there is no immediate danger to residents." The Alhambra, however, had not announced by the time this text closed when it would reopen. (ABC ↗, La Vanguardia ↗)

Three days after Saturday's 4.8-magnitude earthquake near Alhendín, another equally strong tremor struck at 10:37 a.m. on Tuesday, with its epicenter in neighboring Gójar. Granada then experienced a full swarm of earthquakes in the morning: after the main shock came a series of others above magnitude 4, at 10:53 in Churriana de la Vega, at 11:34 in Alhendín with a magnitude of 4.2, another in Armilla, and the last at 12:41 again in Alhendín. The tremors were felt not only in Granada but also in the provinces of Málaga, Jaén, Almería and Córdoba. eldiario.es ↗ El País ↗

📍 Gójar and neighboring Alhendín - municipalities near Granada where the strongest tremors had their epicenters — view on map

The overall toll of the sequence is much larger than the headlines suggest. Since Saturday, when the area was hit by the first 4.8-magnitude tremor, the IGN has recorded 348 earthquakes. People felt 37 of them, while the rest were detected only by instruments. eldiario.es ↗

So far there are three injured people, all lightly hurt, and one girl was taken to hospital. But damage to buildings is more serious in places: the municipality of Las Gabias has temporarily evacuated five apartment blocks with roughly one hundred flats on Fray Junípero Serra Street until technicians finish a detailed inspection of cracks and structural stability. The emergency line 112 received more than five hundred calls in a single morning. Offices, shopping centers and bars closed, the Andalusian health service suspended non-urgent daytime activity, and Granada's city council raised the municipal alert level so it could deploy more resources. According to the city, none of the nine more serious incidents in Granada itself involved structural damage. ABC ↗ eldiario.es ↗ La Vanguardia ↗

For visitors, the important part is the two closed landmarks: the Alhambra and the cathedral. After the tremor, an evacuation protocol was activated in the Alcazaba, entry to the Nasrid Palaces was interrupted, and at 11:45 the Generalife and its gardens were also emptied. The site management then decided the monument would remain closed, and its conservators together with experts from the University of Granada are carrying out a detailed inspection of the complex. It has not yet announced when it will reopen or what will happen to tickets for the coming days. Anyone holding a ticket for this week should check the Alhambra website directly before traveling to Granada, not only at the ticket office. ABC ↗ Hosteltur ↗

The question on the mind of anyone with a flight to Andalusia is whether a stronger tremor will come. The answer is uncomfortably honest: nobody knows. Juan Vicente Cantavella, director of the National Seismic Network, says the two strong tremors are "closely linked" and belong to the same seismic sequence, but every sequence unfolds differently and cannot be predicted precisely. It is also unusual that there is no single main shock. "We can no longer speak of one main shock, because in reality there are two," he said, since both have the same magnitude of 4.8. Earthquakes, he says, almost never come alone. Experts contacted by ABC also allow for a tremor of around magnitude 5, but stress that timing it is impossible. El País ↗ ABC ↗

Red warning: Valencia closes towers and the Saler on Wednesday

• 20.08.The heat over Valencia broke with a storm. Wind gusts of up to 150 kilometers per hour and hail caused damage to roads, railways and infrastructure El Mundo ↗El Español ↗
• 20.08.In the middle of August, autumn is announcing itself with a sharp drop in temperatures - after the red warning, the opposite extreme follows ABC ↗
• 20.08.A medical reminder about heat: "Heatstroke can be fatal within 30 minutes if we do not lower body temperature" ABC ↗}

• {{upd3:A Valencian night that will go down in the city's meteorological history: at midnight they measured as much as 39 degrees. If you are planning a nighttime drive along the coast, assume that cooling after sunset is not working this week. eldiario.es ↗
• 20.08.In contrast, widespread rain arrived in the north and east of the peninsula, and in municipalities in León province the lows fell to six degrees. The difference between north and south is extreme this week. El Mundo ↗

The heat is being driven by a DANA low-pressure system in the southwest of the peninsula combined with a ridge of high pressure over the southeast. According to AEMET spokesperson José Luis Camacho, together they are maintaining the inflow of hot Saharan air. On Monday, forty stations in the main monitoring network went above 40 degrees, with the highest reading in Montoro near Córdoba at 43.1 degrees. The red warning, meaning extreme danger, applied on Tuesday to Galicia and moves on Wednesday to the Valencia and Alicante coast. El País ↗

For planning the day, it is important that the warning does not start in the morning. The red alert is due to apply on Wednesday from 13:00 to 20:59, exactly when most people are out sightseeing, and it covers 229 municipalities in the Valencia and Alicante provinces. Temperatures may reach 42 to 44 degrees, and AEMET also warns that the combination of extreme heat, very low humidity and dried-out vegetation sharply raises the risk of forest fires. El Debate ↗ El Español ↗

Valencia is not treating this as a formality. The city crisis team led by Mayor María José Catalá approved a package of restrictions for Wednesday, and some of them directly affect tourists. Torres de Serranos and Torres de Quart, the two surviving medieval city gates and among the most photographed places in the city, are closing. The coastal pine forest Devesa del Saler is closed until Friday, August 21; movement and any activity there are banned, and the fire-prevention system has been activated as a precaution. Special markets by the port and on the seafront promenade have been canceled, municipal cemeteries are closed, and Gulliver Park closes at 13:00. City pools remain open until 21:00, and so-called climate refuges are opening, meaning air-conditioned public spaces to get through the heat peak. Outdoor city sports activities, including beach classes, are canceled. ABC ↗

From Thursday, AEMET says, this will turn around. A widespread change in the weather is expected, temperatures falling below the usual values, and rain in the north and in places in the east of the peninsula. Anyone with a ticket for the end of the week can also expect a light rain jacket. El País ↗

Where it is burning and what it is doing to roads

• 21.08.Firefighters from Castilla and León, after Spain's biggest fire in history, speak of unbearable conditions. El País sums it up in one firefighter's words: "It's inhuman." El País ↗
• 21.08.And one number that explains the storms from the previous wave: the sea is record warm. According to ABC, that is the fuel for thermal downbursts and possible DANA-type rain episodes - the same mechanism that closed the Valencian towers last week. ABC ↗

• 20.08.The fire near Niebla in Huelva is under control after two weeks, with 33,000 hectares burned La Vanguardia ↗}
• {{upd4:The fire in Fermoselle in Zamora has been declared extinguished, after burning roughly 11,150 hectares eldiario.es ↗}
• {{upd4:A new blaze has appeared in Urzainki in Navarre, where the terrain is complicating the firefighting efforts eldiario.es ↗. Castilla and León has strengthened its deployment in Zamora and Burgos by five crews eldiario.es ↗}
• {{upd4:Season tally: 36,582 hectares of agricultural land burned, meaning the two most destructive fire seasons of the decade back to back ABC ↗}

• {{upd3:The fire in Las Peñas de Riglos in Huesca is stabilized. But the scale varies by source: El Confidencial gives 18,400 burned hectares, while eldiario.es gives 14,500 and says this is the biggest firefighting deployment in Aragon's history. El Confidencial ↗eldiario.es ↗}
• {{upd3:The fire in Cáceres, by contrast, is still active - a TV crew had to be evacuated with the words "the flames are three hundred meters from us". In neighboring Salamanca, the risk from the same fire is receding. This is the same blaze in Las Hurdes that we wrote about in the first wave. El Mundo ↗El Confidencial ↗}

• {{upd1:A third major fire has appeared - in Las Hurdes in Cáceres province. The authorities called in the military emergency unit UME and evacuated six hundred residents. Extremadura lies on the route between Madrid and the Portuguese border, so this also affects transit drivers. El País ↗}
• {{upd1:By contrast, the fire near San Cipriano del Condado in León province has been extinguished - more than 1,500 hectares burned there. ABC ↗}
• {{upd1:The Entrepeñas and Buendía reservoirs have fallen to 54.56 percent of capacity, losing 19 cubic hectometers in the last period. This is the context for water restrictions you may encounter in central Spain. ABC ↗}

The largest active fire is still the one near Las Peñas de Riglos in Aragon, which has been burning since August 10. The provisional affected area is 17,500 hectares, but Aragon regional minister Roberto Bermúdez de Castro pointed out that the latest Copernicus satellite analysis shows that in reality around 15,000 hectares burned, because many untouched areas remained inside the perimeter. 1,046 people remain evacuated, and if the situation does not worsen, the first returns home could begin on Wednesday. Firefighters have around thirty aerial units deployed and are searching for hotspots on the perimeter with drones. The Aragon government considers Tuesday and Wednesday crucial because a west-northwesterly wind with gusts of 30 to 40 kilometers per hour is blowing, temperatures are above 35 degrees, and relative humidity may fall to 10 to 15 percent. On Sunday, a soldier from the UME military emergency unit died in the fire when his vehicle left the road into a ravine during support work; three other members were injured. eldiario.es ↗ TASR ↗

The San Juan de la Peña monasteries, a Romanesque pilgrimage site and symbolic cradle of Aragon, survived the fire. The flames reached the upper part of the rock that protects the older of the two monasteries, and the stone was scorched in places, but the buildings did not suffer serious damage. On Thursday, according to Bermúdez de Castro, they had been in "serious danger of destruction" for several hours. Javier Barrio, a conservation coordinator from the Jacetania area, described why the fire could not be stopped earlier: the slope was too steep, heat and wind decided the outcome, and there was only one road to the site. Anyone planning a trip to Huesca, Jaca or the monasteries themselves should check road access and accessibility before leaving - the fire is still active. eldiario.es ↗

A more practical issue is Catalonia. On Tuesday noon a forest fire broke out in Vila-seca beside the A-7 motorway, right next to Salou and PortAventura, where a large share of Slovak and Czech holiday groups go. Five units of Catalan firefighters stopped it on the flanks and prevented it from jumping the road. On the AP-7 motorway, one lane was closed southbound near l'Ametlla de Mar because of another vegetation fire, and in the opposite direction near Vandellòs i l'Hospitalet de l'Infant there were queues up to 5.5 kilometers long after a pile-up involving three cars. La Vanguardia ↗

West Nile virus: 46 cases and mosquito traps

• {{upd4:West Nile virus has now appeared for the first time in the Canary Islands - it was confirmed in three horses on Gran Canaria eldiario.es ↗

- 18.08.The virus has meanwhile also spread into Extremadura: six new cases, seventeen in total. Andalusia is therefore not the only affected region, and Seville has intensified spraying and monitoring in parks. (ABC ↗, ABC ↗)}

On Tuesday Andalusia raised this year's human West Nile fever case count to 46 after three new mild infections in Seville province. Of the total, 32 people had a mild course and 14 developed neuroinvasive disease, meaning a form that affects the nervous system. Since the counting began, there has been one death, 16 people were hospitalized, and ten of them remain in hospital. The cases are concentrated in the provinces of Seville and Huelva, with the most in Villamanrique de la Condesa on the edge of Doñana, where there are ten. Twenty-seven Andalusian municipalities have been declared areas with cases. eldiario.es ↗

Seville itself, after a confirmed case near Tablada, launched targeted treatment in Guadaíra Park and intensified monitoring of green areas. The city has deployed carbon-dioxide traps that imitate human breathing and can catch 200 to 300 mosquitoes per day, and it is also spraying treatments into tree canopies and water surfaces. The budget for insect control exceeds 100,000 euros. ABC ↗

For holidaymakers, the takeaway is simple. The Culex mosquito that carries the virus is most active from dusk to dawn, so repellent and long sleeves are a sensible investment in the evenings around Seville, Doñana and the Guadalquivir delta. Most infections pass without symptoms or as flu, while the risky minority are neurological cases and mainly affect older people.

Four beaches remain closed in Málaga

• {{upd2:Closed beaches have become a topic for the whole sector. El Confidencial writes about "the August of closed beaches in Málaga" - according to it, outflows in several bays threaten the tourist season as a whole, not just individual swimming spots. El Confidencial ↗}

• {{upd1:A fourteen-year-old boy drowned in the bay between Amadores and Puerto Rico in Gran Canaria. It is a stretch that local media have long described as dangerous - without a lifeguard and with currents. ABC ↗El Mundo ↗}
• {{upd1:Britain's The Sun warns of a new burglary method in Spanish tourist resorts: gangs corrode door locks with syringes filled with acid. The Sun ↗}
• {{upd1:Three people were shot dead in the street in Isla Cristina on the Huelva coast, and police are searching for two masked gunmen. According to the findings so far, it was a targeted attack, not random violence. ABC ↗El Mundo ↗}

The Costa del Sol has its own problem, and it has nothing to do with fire or tremors. On Monday the Málaga city council raised a red flag and banned swimming on six city beaches after water samples showed Escherichia coli bacteria above permitted limits. On Tuesday it reopened two of them - El Palo and Campo de Golf-San Julián - because analyses by the municipal water company Emasa showed a widespread drop in bacteria levels. Four remain closed: Guadalmar, Sacaba, La Misericordia and San Andrés. El Español ↗ El Mundo ↗

The city council links the pollution to Saturday night's storm, which overloaded the sewer system and caused outflows into the sea. According to the council, the cause also lies in the structure of the coastal drainage network, which carries wastewater and rainwater through a shared pipe - a common weakness in seaside cities. Nearby Benalmádena meanwhile reopened three of the five beaches it had closed on Sunday as a precaution after about twenty bathers reported health reactions. El Español ↗ El Mundo ↗

A red flag is not a recommendation, it is a swimming ban. The situation changes after every new test, so it is worth checking the signs directly on the beach, not the status from two days ago.

Travel to and from Spain still goes through passport control

• {{upd5:The government has raised the number of unaccompanied minors intercepted in Ceuta to 2,500 and says there are "far more" of them. It also repeats that expelling them would be illegal. El Español ↗}
• {{upd5:El País explains why 500 of them are being moved to the mainland: it is about immediate basic care and a response to their mental health, for which there is no capacity in the enclave. El País ↗}
• {{upd5:The crisis reached the king. According to El País, the government sounded out Felipe VI about whether it would be appropriate for him to call Mohammed VI - in other words, whether the royal channel can help where diplomacy is stalling. El País ↗}
• {{upd5:Germany's Tagesschau says Spain is setting up accommodation facilities in Ceuta, and in a comment calls it "a political and humanitarian bankruptcy." Tagesschau ↗Tagesschau - commentary ↗}
• {{upd5:This is the fifth and final update wave for this article. Any further developments - in Ceuta, at the fires or on the beaches - will be handled in a separate text so the overview remains readable.

• {{upd4:The government is moving 1,800 migrants from El Trampolín beach and preparing more spaces El País ↗}
• {{upd4:Tension in Ceuta: more than five hundred migrants rebelled and returned to the illegal camp ABC ↗}
• {{upd4:Brussels repeats that Spain has an obligation to protect vulnerable minors, but also calls for the return of "all" irregular migrants El País ↗ABC ↗}
• {{upd4:The ombudsman has opened an investigation into the health situation in Ceuta El Español ↗}

• {{upd3:In Ceuta, police are moving thousands of migrants from Trampolín beach to new reception facilities, and 500 minors will go to the mainland. Spain is preparing capacity there for 1,800 people. If you are passing through Ceuta by ferry, expect a stronger police presence. eldiario.es ↗Observador ↗}
• {{upd3:Near Lanzarote, 241 people were rescued from boats within a few hours and British media published footage of dozens of migrants running onto a tourist-filled beach near La Manga. ABC ↗The Sun ↗}
• {{upd3:The ban on renting apartments to tourists without the approval of the owners' association has taken effect. It applies to bookings in private apartments - for any new reservation, check whether the landlord is registered. El Mundo ↗}

• {{upd2:The European Union is pushing for migrant returns from Ceuta to Morocco, including hundreds of unaccompanied minors, and says nobody should be moved to the mainland. G4Media ↗El Mundo ↗}
• {{upd2:Spanish intelligence services intercepted calls for violence in Moroccan networks - "to attack occupied Ceuta." ABC ↗}

Anyone combining Spain and Italy still has to count on checks that the Schengen area has not seen for years. After the mass arrival of migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in late July, Rome introduced checks on travelers from Spain on August 1, and Madrid returned the favor from August 8. According to AP, the Spanish checks are to last at least a month. They are random and aimed mainly at travelers from third countries, but they apply to everyone on air and sea routes between the two countries. A Slovak or Czech flying from Rome to Barcelona does not need a passport, only a valid identity card, but must carry it with them, not in checked luggage - and it is worth arriving at the airport or port with time to spare. AP ↗ La Moncloa ↗

Read also: Holiday in Italy: Etna closes Catania airport, 50 hectares burned on Lake Garda, and flights to Spain go through passport control

Anyone who gets into serious trouble outside office hours has access to the nonstop emergency line of the Foreign Ministry crisis center at +421 2 5978 5978 and +421 906 075 978. It is not for ordinary consular questions, but for reporting deaths, hospitalizations, police detention and other cases that threaten life, health or property.

What hotinfo is following

3/4 completedcheck by 18.11.2026

• ✅Whether the Alhambra's management announces a reopening date after an inspection with experts from the University of Granada, and how it handles tickets bought for the closed days.→ Alhambra po zemetraseniach opäť otvorila svoje brány verejnostiAlhambru otvorili už v stredu 19. augusta, prvé kontroly nenašli významné poškodenie ani riziko zrútenia. Ako správa vyriešila lístky kúpené na zavreté dni, nezverejnila.
• ✅Whether the Granada sequence continues with another strong tremor, or the number of tremors gradually falls.→ Další silné zemětřesení v Granadě. Poškodilo i slavnou AlhambruSéria pokračovala — v noci na stredu prišli ďalšie dva otrasy s magnitúdou 3,3 a 3,4 s epicentrom v Ogíjares — ale silnejší než utorkových 4,8 už neprišiel a po 19. auguste ďalší výrazný otras nikto nehlásil.
• ✅Whether restrictions in Valencia are lifted after Wednesday's peak heat and whether Devesa del Saler opens on Friday as planned.Horúčava sa nad Valenciou 20. augusta zlomila búrkou s nárazmi do 150 km/h, čím červený stupeň aj s ním spojené obmedzenia skončili (vlna 4). Či Devesa del Saler otvorila podľa plánu v piatok, sa už nepotvrdilo.
• ❌Whether the return of 1,046 people evacuated from the fire near Riglos really begins on Wednesday. And what further water tests in Málaga show — whether the remaining four beaches open before the season ends.Článok sa uzavrel piatou vlnou bez toho, aby sa potvrdil stredajší začiatok návratov 1 046 evakuovaných od Riglosu. V Málage sa z pôvodne štyroch zavretých pláží podarilo otvoriť dve, o zvyšných dvoch ďalšie rozbory nepriniesli verejný výsledok.

How it continues — the full tracker →