the bbc�*s guy hedgecoe reports from the region. spain in living memory. it destroyed both lives and livelihoods. pascal's family has made chocolate for more than a century but in just a few hours the business was destroyed as his machinery was submerged in water. now he says he is too old to start again. translation: all my life working and for what? - nearly 50,000 businesses suffer the impact of the flooding with the industrial belt surrounding valencia particularly affected. some businesses have reopened but only partially, like the electrical deletion company that this woman and her husband run on this industrial estate. the flooding destroyed 40,000 euros worth of equipment. translation: we were i immediately affected 10096 because we lost our tools and vehicles. now more than a month later we are working a 10% of our capacity. among the material damage caused by the flooding were more than 100,000 cars that were washed away. in the month after the disaster struck, the central government announced around 17 billion euros in ag

our correspondent, guy hedgecoe is in madrid.ioned there the top prize is 400,000 if you have a winning number on your single ticket. that has not been announced yet, but there are second, third, fourth, fifth prizes. we've had a third prize announced. that's worth 50,000 euros for a single ticket carrying a third—prize—winning number. one of those has been announced, and a fourth prize and a fifth prize as well. you mentioned there the total prize money being given out today is 2.7 billion euros. and this is all part of a huge tradition in spain. even people who don't normally play the lottery do tend to buy tickets for the christmas lottery. what they normally do is they buy a series of tickets, often in a strip, with friends, family or workmates. the idea being that if they might win, then they share out the winnings. but we're still waiting to hear for that top jackpot for the 400,000 euros prize. but a lot of people around the country, millions of people, are watching live on television the prize draw in the hope that they h

one of the most exciting and widely anticipated lotteries in spain. 0ur corrrespondent in madrid guy hedgecoeone person who had the ticket with that number on it. there were hundreds of people holding that winning ticket, so nearly 800 million euros in jackpot money was handed out to people who had that ticket. a lot of them were up in the northern town of logrono. so there were celebrations up there on the streets of logrono. other people who had that winning ticket were here in madrid. there was a basketball club here in madrid, many of whose members had bought that ticket as well. so there were dozens of people in that basketball club who were celebrating. but the way that this lottery works is that there are lots of other second, third, fourth, fifth prizes as well. so there were smaller prizes handed out to people across the rest of the country, for example, in the eastern region of valencia, which was so hard hit by those awful flash floods back in october. there were some places in valencia which had been affected by those floods where there were winners of smaller prizes as well. so a

among this year's winners were flood—hit businesses in valencia, as guy hedgecoe reports.spain, is one of the traditions of christmas. it's a lottery that's been run for more than 200 years. many people who don't normally play lotteries take part, buying tickets with friends, family or workmates and dreaming of sharing the winnings. the prize draw takes place in madrid's opera house, where schoolchildren sing out the winning numbers... sings numbers in spanish. translation: ijust got a phone call from a friend and she told me - that we have the jackpot. translation: it has been won i in a club in a poor neighbourhood. many of the families who play are working—class families, and that is the most important thing of all. translation: i'm going to buy a drum because i'm going to break _ this one, of course. each ticket bearing the jackpot number is worth 400,000 euros — just over £330,000. but there were smaller prizes, too. some went to people in towns in the valencia region which were devastated by flash floods that killed more than 220 people two months ago. translation: w