It looks like there was an earthquake or a war in Leiria

City unrecognizable because of depression Kristin. In the center of the country, there are electricity and communications cuts.

Os strong winds produced by this morning caused damage to infrastructure, falling trees, destroyed cars and cuts in electricity and water supplies in Leiria, city ​​that is unrecognizable.

As you walk through the streets of the city of Leiria, a blanket of destruction is visible: in addition to the queues of traffic, which are longer than usual, the roads have broken or fallen trees and poles.

Hundreds of vehicles have broken windows, while others have been blown away by the wind.

There are several roads impassable, including one of the accesses to the Leiria hospital, where a large tree fell and a landslide occurred.

In many homes, there is no water or electricity. Communications are also failing in several locations.

In practically all buildings, the roof is now an empty space, without most of the tiles, the Lusa agency found out on a tour of the city.

There are constant sirens from different police forces, firefighters and various civil protection vehicles, which seek to respond to all requests, so that normality is restored as quickly as possible.

In , the director of the newspaper Região de Leiria, Francisco Rebelo dos Santos, describes moments of the storm, “as if it were a earthquake“.

“There is a scenario of very great destruction. It looks like a war scenarioall the climate typical of a storm like no memory. It was the most serious storm I experienced here”, adds Francisco.

The councilor responsible for Civil Protection in the Leiria Chamber, Luís Lopes, told the Lusa agency that the priority is the most important infrastructures in the municipality, which “have suffered considerable damage”.

One of them is the Leiria Volunteer Firefighters barracks, where the damage caused injuries serious in a firefighterwho was transported to the hospital.

Luís Lopes stated that there are records of other minor injuries.

Another of the Chamber’s priorities now is the replacement of water and electricity supplies. However, the official warned the population that it is possible that these failures could continue for a few days, as several structures are damaged.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us. We appeal to people to stay at home and avoid driving on the roadto clear the roads”, he advised, also asking the community to help each other.

Around 12pm, there were around 2,600 occurrences registered throughout the country. The infrastructures of telecommunications operators were damaged and, therefore, there are cortes on fixed and mobile networks Vodafone e MEO, in the center of the country. More than 610 thousand customers were nor energy electric, at 11am; half of the cases in Leiria.