Red alert for British holiday hotspot as floods hit Spain’s Costa del Sol

A red weather warning for "extreme danger" has been issued at a Spanish resort popular with British holidaymakers.

Spain's Costa del Sol is in the grip of a storm, with torrential rain battering the coastal destination and even worse conditions expected.

Floodwaters have risen "several metres in height" in some places, sparking the rarely used alert from Spain's national weather bureau, The Sun reports.

Up to 120 litres of water per square metre could accumulate within 12 hours due to the rain, according to the State Meteorological Agency.

Red weather alerts have been issued for 27 municipalities across the Malaga region, with Costa del Sol and Guadalhorce among the worst-hit areas.

Residents and tourists have been trapped indoors as floodwaters turned streets into rivers filled with mud and debris, trapping cars and uprooting trees.

Orange warnings for rain are in effect in the regions of Ronda, Antequera and Axarquía, as well as the Granada coast and the Almería regions.

The weather disturbance comes weeks after Storm Alice caused devastating flash flooding in Spain, while the country is still reeling from deadly floods which killed 220 people.

Elsewhere in Europe, footage shows Mount Etna on the east coast of Sicily has erupted, sending huge clouds of ash into the air.

The activity at Etna began on Boxing Day, as Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology confirmed the eruptive phase.