I heard about this on the radio this morning David. What a sad, freak accident.

david d it do e to beni or was it isolated.

First and foremost, I send my sincere condolences to the family of the deceased.

The more I read about this, the more I know this could have been prevented and it should be a warning to every Ayuntamiento in Spain (or anywhere for that matter) where markets are allowed to be situated in/on dry riverbeds.
It wasn't a ‘freak' accident because similar situations have previously occurred in La Cala Finestrat, and the flood risk is well known prompting signs warning of flooding and advising not to park on rainy days.

After a substantial amount of rainfall, which in this area drains from the whole of the Sierra Cortina into the river, most of us realise that riverbeds are in situ to take the excessive water down to the sea, and it beggars belief that local people familiar with the seasonal weather patterns, and in a position to prevent this happening, that they would forget why the riverbed is there.
To asphalt it preventing the ground from soaking up some of the deluge and holding a weekly market in it, is just playing Russian roulette with people's lives, but the situation revolves around collecting money from the stall holders and you'll get more stalls IN a riverbed than around it.!

Unfortunately two people have had to lose their lives for someone to see the lunacy of allowing a weekly market to take place in a (normally) dry riverbed, but in Spain you can see streams disappearing into a parched arid landscape for many years and then coming back into view when Mother Nature decides.

Flash floods are not uncommon and are quite different from la gota fria (the cold drop), so did nobody think about tracking the weather front that produced a violent storm which swept over Mallorca heading Westwards and then South West over the Sierra Cortina, and foreseeing the potential danger.?
I mention this because last night I was reading that this weekend certain provinces in Andalusia have been on ‘yellow alert' (and still are today) because of the expected rainfall.

Tragic that two people have died, two people who have been described as a devoted couple who went to Benidorm for 20 years, but TBH it's a miracle it hasn't happened before now, and given the information that there were proceedings pending from a Spanish agency about the situation, then I hope someone is going to look at charging the Ayuntamiento de Finestrat with corporate manslaughter, because you can sure bet that if it happened in the UK and the good old ‘elf & safety' rules applied, then corporate manslaughter would be the agenda.
IMO: Lunacy and neglect of duty.

Sanji

We were staying in Benidorm when this happened, such a tragedy, my heart goes out to those who died