“We don’t know what to do, we are completely isolated and desperate”: Figueiró dos Vinhos asks for help

Mayor calling from the firefighters’ satellite phone speaks in “second greatest tragedy” after Pedrógão Grande. The municipality of Leiria is without communications, without energy and, in a few hours, without water, devastated by a trail of destruction. Mayor asks for a state of calamity to be declared.

The President of the Chamber of Figueiró dos Vinhosin the district of Leiria, asked for help and a declaration of calamity this Thursday, and warned that the municipality, due to bad weather, is “living through one of the worst moments in its history”.

“I’m calling from the firefighters’ satellite phone because, effectively, we have no communications. No mobile network works on this land, in this municipality. We have no possibility of talking to the outside world and we are currently asking for help”, Carlos Lopes told the Lusa agency.

Carlos Lopes said he hopes that this request for help “can reach all those who have responsibilities in this country, in the area of ​​Civil Protection and in the area of ​​people’s safety”.

“We are, at this moment, completely desperate and we don’t know what we can do”he added.

According to the mayor, the municipality has “a trail of destruction throughout the territory.” The municipality “has no communications, no energy”, currently has “water in the parishes for around 12 hours” and “great difficulties in terms of maintaining homes” for the elderly, he warned.

“We are completely isolated. Figueiró dos Vinhos considers itself completely isolated from the rest of the district, the region and the country”, declared the president of the municipality, calling on the Government to “look at this territory and also manage, in some way, to consider the possibility of declaring a state of calamity”, this morning in the districts of Leiria and Coimbra.

The destruction includes municipal infrastructure, signage, walls and landslides, with services trying to resolve where they can reach. Noting that in all the towns in the municipality there are “hundreds of destroyed housing roofs”, the mayor explained that There are people who will probably have to be relocated, “because there are no longer conditions to keep them” in their homes, because many “are in the open”.

“We really need solidarity from the Government, we really need solidarity from public entities, we really need to respond to a population that is experiencing, in just a few years, second biggest tragedy of recent decades”, he highlighted, in an allusion to the Pedrógão Grande fires, in June 2017, which also affected, among others, the municipality of Figueiró dos Vinhos.

Its passage through Portuguese territory left a trail of destruction, causing five deaths and several people being displaced. The most affected districts were Leiria (where the depression entered the mainland), Coimbra, Santarém and Lisbon.

Falling trees and structures, cutting or conditioning of roads and transport services, especially railway lines, closing schools and power, water and communications cuts were the main material consequences of the storm.