Mallorca calls for military aid as more than a metre of snow falls

Mallorca has requested the help of the Spanish military emergency aid unit as it struggles to deal with a storm that brought more than 1 metre of snow to the island. Although winter storm Juliette moved east towards Italy on Wednesday, it took hours for some of the emergency services to reach people who had been snowed in at higher altitudes. Snow began to fall on Monday and piled up to a depth of 1.4 metres in places at altitudes above 800 metres. In addition, there were stormy winds and the coasts were battered by high waves. The snowfall initially caused enthusiasm among locals and visiting tourists, and prompted hundreds of people to go up into the mountains. Many were cut off and had to seek shelter. In the monastery of Lluc, for example, almost 100 trippers were snowed in without mobile phone reception or electricity. The monastery, in the north of the island, had enough sleeping places and food to cater for the unexpected overnight visitors, and was reached by the island's mountain rescue team on Tuesday. It was also unusually cold in other parts of Spain, with night time temperatures falling to minus 10 degrees Celsius in the Pyrenees.