Spanish streets flooded with sea foam as storm Gloria batters Catalonia

Tossa De Mar is awash with seafoam. Photo / Supplied, Sivia Ragolta Soms, Twitter

As Storm Gloria whips the Mediterranean into a frenzy one small Spanish town has been flooded by salty, white foam.

Tossa De Mar, which is just north of Barcelona, witnessed the power of the deadly storm that has caused chaos throughout Spain and the Balearics.

Video of the frothy sea foam shows streets swamped by the murky mass, in places as high as door frames.

La espuma marina envuelve las calles de Tossa de Mar, cerca de #Barcelona, debido a la tormenta #Gloria 🌊 pic.twitter.com/OeSEKFYBDP

— Reuters Latam (@ReutersLatam) January 22, 2020

Filmed by Silvia Ragolta Soms, and publishd on the Spanish-language Twitter acount of Reuters, the street is empty apart from two other brave bystanders.

Though spectacular, this effect of the storm is harmless when compared the widespread flooding and winds elsewhere in the country.

Gloria has claimed the life of seven people and left 200,000 without electricity.

Bridges and roads are blocked and have collapsed in heavy flooding.

On Wednesday local authorities said a further three people had died across southeastern Spain.

People take snapshots atop a collapsed bridge in Malgrat, near Barcelona. Photo / Joan Mateu, AP

A man was drowned near the Valencian town of Callosa, while two more people had been killed by falling buildings in the town of Alcoy and Nijar, according to Associated Press reports.

Searches continue for other missing people.

Since Sunday, Spain and the islands of Mallorca and Menorca have encountered hail, blizzards and massive waves.

Record waves of over 9 metres have broken over buildings in Mallorca and Valencia. One clip shows a wave reaching the top of aparment bocks, estimated at 15 metres high.

While the worst of the storm is thought to have passed, popular tourist destinations along the East coast of Spain have suffered a number of indignities.

The sand of Barcelona's pleasure beaches have been washed away. Photo / Joan Mateu, AP

In Barcelona the city's pleasure beaches have been denuded of sand, leaving them unrecognisable.

La Barceloneta, Barcelona's artificially bathing strand was widened for the 1992 Olympics, was hit by huge waves. Extreme weather patterns have eroded a quarter of the beache's surface area since 2010, which will only be sped up by Gloria.

Rubén del Campo, a spokesman for national weather service AEMET told the Associated Press that the storm is forecast to be one of the strongest on record, with the heaviest rainfall in 70 years.

#Barcelona beaches are artificial & really do not belong here any more than the seven strains of palm tree. I have just seen first hand the usually placid Mediterranean take the beach away. On happier note the cayman islands flags on yachts are in tatters #gloria #ClimateChange pic.twitter.com/4rBSqVdmZW

— iosaf mac diarmada ≜ Ⓐ ⧖ 🔻 无 名💜🕷 (@ipsiphi) January 21, 2020

- With AP reporting