A four-year-old Irish boy suffered minor injuries after being hit by a rock fall on Vau beach at around midday on Wednesday (May 26).
The child was partially buried by the land slide, which occurred in three stages allowing most beachgoers to vacate the area.
The child was assisted on the site by emergency services before being taken to Portimão Hospital as a precautionary measure.
A spokesman from the Paediatric Unit at Barlavento Hospital said: “The child was treated for minor injuries but left the hospital soon after.”
According to the captain of the Portimão and Lagos ports, Cruz Martins, “the site where the rock collapse occurred is not a bathing area but even so it was registered as being dangerous by the authorities. The falling of rocks and sediments was from a height of 20 metres. The debris had a volume of about four cubic metres, the equivalent to a large truck.”
Christiane Hinrichs, a local resident who works for The Resident Group, said: “I walk my dog every morning along the rocks above Vau beach. Just this morning (Wednesday) I noticed that all the warning signs and cordons, put up last summer after the terrible accident that happened in Albufeira, had disappeared over the winter.”
The accident comes after many Algarve beaches received safety improvement works following the death of five people after a rockfall on Maria Luísa beach in Albufeira.
However, there are still several beaches in the region lacking warning signs in areas posing danger to beachgoers.
In a bid to make the Algarve’s beaches safe, an area of the cliffs at São Rafael beach in Albufeira was removed by controlled demolition to prevent the risk of rocks falling during the summer holiday season.
A total of 19 beaches in the Algarve have been the subject of safety improvement work, at a cost of around 50,000 euros.
Minister of the Environment Dulce Pássaro said this week that there are plans to move forward with fines for those who do not respect the warning signs.
Do you have a view on this story? Please email Editor Inês Lopes at ines.lopes@theresidentgroup.com
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