Event: Andrés Sánchez Barea

For Andrés Sánchez Barea, in Spain, it was the fear that arose when water started to spurt from plug sockets. For Nelson Duarte, in Portugal, it was the helplessness that hit as violent winds smacked down trees and tore tiles from roofs. For Amal Essuide, in Morocco, it was the reality that dawned when a corpse was pulled onboard a boat in the flooded medina.Each moment of horror is a fragment of the destruction wrought by an atmospheric machine-gun that in recent weeks has fired storm after storm at the western Mediterranean. Scientists do not know if climate breakdown helped pull the trigger, but research suggests it loaded the chamber with bigger bullets.Debris after Storm Kristin in Leiria, Portugal, in early February. The storm took out electricity, telephone and internet services in the region. Photograph: Pedro Nunes/ReutersIn Grazalema, Spain’s wettest town, a year’s-worth of rain fell in a fortnight and overloaded the karst aquifer beneath it. Water rushed into homes through floors, walls and even electricity sockets. Authorities ordered everyone to evacuate.“I felt a lot of fear,” said Sánchez Barea, a guesthouse owner whose home is one of hundreds still in an exclusion zone. “At first we tried to get rid of the water. Lots of people came to help, but we realised it was impossible.”Grazalema rainfall graphIn Leiria, one of four regions in Portugal where extreme rain broke records in January, powerful winds added to the damage. Monte Real airbase logged a top wind speed of 109mph (176km/h) before the station was hit and measurements stopped. Storm Kristin took out electricity, internet, and telephone service in the early hours of a morning that would soon turn deadly.“It was around this time that everything seemed to be falling apart,” said Duarte, a beekeeper in Monte Real who lost half his…