The Andalusian, emergency, call centre, 112 handled 3,523 incidents over the region during Christmas Eve and the first hours of Christmas Day.

From 00.01h on Friday to 07.00h Christmas morning the amount of calls handled represented a third more than for the same period of last year when there were only 2,649 incidents.

The majority of calls were for medical assistance (1,544) and then police presence (626). After that came road accidents (246) whilst fire service call-outs to tackle fires were 101 (they also had call-outs for flooding etc). There were anxious calls over anomolies in basic services (electricity & water), as well as rescues both on land and sea.

The break down for provinces is as follows: Sevilla 1,170; Málaga 617; Cádiz 480 and Granada 378. The quieter end of the scale went to Córdoba (263), Jaén (212), Almería (205) and Huelva (198).

The 112 emergency number is for any kind of emergency, from fires to road accidents; from medical assistance to rescues, from break-ins to muggings. The operators can handle many languages, including English, French, German and Arabic, as well as Spanish.

(News: Andalucia)