Damages could easily reach €3 million – will anyone pay?
The criminal investigation into the spectacular blaze at Prior Velho, in Loures, that reduced over 200 vehicles to twisted piles of metal in a Loures ‘airport carpark’ last year has been closed, with the majority of victims receiving no compensation – and no one is sure if they ever will.
The answer is very possibly that ‘they wont’.
Reports today suggest that investigators cannot even be sure where the blaze began.
At the outset the disaster was attributed to a Tesla electric vehicle. This then changed to a ‘short circuit in a combustion-engine car’, so rapidly that it looked as if it was simply not politically-correct to suggest that an electric car could be the cause of such damage. And today, SIC states: “The report by PJ (police) was inconclusive as to in which car the fire started”.
In other words, we are back to square one.
And for the drivers who had parked their cars before leaving for the airport – believing that they were perfectly safe, in a business that was necessarily licensed and insured – there have been few answers. The PJ has ruled out any indication of crime, thus from that point of view it is ‘case closed’.
Today, says SIC, the ‘carpark’ remains very much as it was post-blaze.
Stories that came out at the time said the owners of the carpark did not even have the right licence for their activity. Today, SIC says its reporters haven’t been able to raise a peep from them.
The media outlet recalls that the Association of Portuguese Insurers calculated at the time that damages ran to more than €3 million – but insurance companies were only prepared to pay out for drivers with fully-comprehensive policies, and/ or specific insurance against fire damage.
Source: SIC Notícias
