Another worrying landslide has forced the evacuation of an apartment building in Costa da Caparica, Almada.
This time, the ‘movement of the hillside’ happened in the early hours of the morning. A rock of “significant dimensions” rolled down the hillside behind residential buildings, hitting no. 3 Rua João de Azevedo with an impact felt by almost everyone sleeping inside.
Fortunately, there were no injuries reported.
Civil Protection quickly began the job of evacuating people, assessing damage and starting to remove the general debris.
The rock hit the apartment building at 3.38am. A few hours later the municipality was affected by another landslide on the EN 378 road, which required the rescue of one man who had been driving in his car and become ‘stuck’. Again fortunately, the man was not injured.
Authorities have been warning of the risks facing the entire country now of localised ‘earth movements’/ landslides, even the possible collapses of some buildings, due to the consequences of so many weeks of persistent rain.
IPMA meteorological institute has issued an orange alert for rain for the following districts until 6pm today, saying the situation is ‘critical’: Viseu, Porto, Vila Real, Santarém, Viana do Castelo, Leiria, Aveiro, Coimbra e Braga.
Bragança, Guarda, Castelo Branco, Portalegre, Setúbal and Lisbon are on yellow alerts for rain for the same period.
And as we wrote this text, breaking news from Sines was that the EN 390 road linking Saõ Torpes to Porto Corvo has collapsed, making driving “absolutely impossible”; new incidents of flooding were also being reported in Porto and in Alcácer do Sal.
Commentators invited onto television news slots have been stressing that the systems Portugal has for incidents of flooding are essentially now ‘out of date’ and ‘insufficient’; while many people over social networks have been remarking on the folly of building residential buildings under cliffs in places like Costa da Caparica.
source material: SIC/ Lusa
