Videos of Mass Snowball ‘Fight’ Go Viral from Madrid after Historic Blizzard in Spain

As Storm Filomena hit Spain last Friday, covering it in record levels of snow, residents of Madrid decided to make light of a rather serious situation. They indulge in a spontaneous snowball ‘fight’, the video of which has gone viral on social media. The capital city Madrid is the epicentre of this weather disaster.

The ‘fight’ broke out at the Plaza de Callao where people on two sides of a somewhat barricaded street flung snowballs at each other. Some were even seen throwing roadside dustbins during the fight. Later, police vehicles drove into the streets and brought the jamboree to an end.

ABC News was among the first to put up the video on its Twitter handle. It collected over 3,200 ‘likes’, and was retweeted 679 times, including 118 ‘quote retweets’.

Quite a few Twitter users made hilarious comments, too, over this unexpected snowball fight.

When one user asked, “Why aren’t they causing bodily harm to each other? I’m confused (sic)”, another replied that the person was probably from a “warmer climate” and didn’t know much about snowballs.

Few Twitter users also blamed these people for being so reckless in times of COVID-19. Some of the reactions were: “They are throwing Corona @ each other (sic)”, “Lol they're gonna end up back on lockdown because of this (sic)”, “AND spread coronavirus. (sic)”, and “Perfect super spreader virus event! 9sic)”.

In a reference to ‘La Tomatina’, the festival is held in the town of Buñol in Valencia, Spain, where people throw tomatoes at each other purely for entertainment, a user posted: “No more TOMATO? (sic)”

Soon after, Spanish journalist David Vidueiro Jiménez resorted to the microblogging website to explain that the police had intervened and broken up the ‘fight’. He also went on to share the video of a similar snowball fight from a street called ‘Gran Vía’.

In what is being described as the ‘worst snowstorm’ in the last five decades, Storm Filomena left scores Spaniards trapped on freeways. In Madrid, snow chains were used for freeing vehicles while garbage collection stood suspended. Given the severity of the blizzard, authorities were forced to issue a red alert and advised citizens to stay cooped up indoors unless there was an emergency.

The storm has claimed at least five lives while hundreds have been left stranded at airports, train stations and even trapped inside their cars.