Seventeen teenagers displaying the first symptoms of hypothermia had to be rescued from their sodden tents by emergency services volunteers at the Extremúsika Festival in Cáceres during the early hours of this morning. They were taken to the municipal sports centre where they were given hot coffee, blankets, and a mattress to sleep on.

With rain forecast to continue throughout the weekend, similar emergency measures will remain in place on the final two days of the festival tonight and tomorrow.

More than 69 groups from Argentina, Uruguay, Germany, Sweden, Mexico, Italy and France are signed up to entertain crowds of up to 20,000 though only around a quarter of that number turned up yesterday.

A council spokesman also confirmed that an unspecified number of teenagers had spent the night at San Pedro de Alcántara Hospital suffering from alcohol poisoning.