A FIREWORK display, during the Festival of São João at Figueira da Foz beach (central Portugal), caused some 50 injuries among spectators who were hit by rocket fragments.
Many needed treatment at the Figueira da Foz District Hospital, where 32 were discharged after being treated for minor burns and light abrasions. The most seriously injured was a youth who sustained burns to his back and a puncture wound to his chest. His father, who was also injured, suffered a puncture wound and, together with a woman with chest burns, were kept under observation “as a precaution”, according to hospital authorities.
The cause of the accident has remained unclear, with a spokesman for the Protecção Civil (Civil Protection) claiming that the injuries resulted from spectators gathering on an area of beach that had been cordoned off as “unsafe” for the duration of the display.However, witnesses state that the injuries were a result of one of the rocket-launching tubes having fallen towards the spectators, with the result that projectiles designed to burst in the sky were fired into the audience where they exploded.
One spectator said that he was watching the display through a window from inside a bar when a projectile smashed through the window leaving a hole several centimetres in diameter before hitting a customer in the chest.
Another witness, who suffered burns to her back, claimed she was nowhere near the cordoned off area and that she was sitting in the sand next to the board walk, where she had sat and watched the display last year, without any problems whatsoever.
Other injuries were reported at a children’s playground, which was 300 metres away from the display area. Nevertheless, in statements to the press, Lído Lopes, co-ordinator of the Protecção Civil, insisted that responsibility for the injuries rested with spectators who had entered the danger area. “People were advised several times to avoid the cordoned off area,” he said.
The injured were attended at the scene by members of the local Bombeiros Voluntários, Protecção Civil, Red Cross, Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP) and the Maritime Police, supported by 14 ambulances.
