Her death is being recorded as the 49th fatality from last October’s killer fires.
As the country ‘mobilises’ in efforts of fire-prevention – with politicians flying from location to location, joining forestry sappers in clean-up initiatives – 84-year-old Maria Arminda Vicente lost her heroic battle for life at Coimbra university hospital on Saturday morning.
The elderly woman had been in an induced coma for five months after suffering “very serious burns” as she struggled to save the family home during the worst fires in Portugal’s living memory.
Say reports, her family thought she was getting better, and were thus “surprised” and dismayed by the news that greeted them on Saturday.
The elderly woman’s body has first to be autopsied before it can be released for burial, writes Correio da Manhã.
Meantime, the country’s high-profile efforts to prepared for the fire season continue to fill column inches.
Over the weekend, both president Marcelo, prime minister Costa and at least 20 other members of the government joined military personnel and forestry sappers in clean-up initiatives. There was even one, in Cadeia de Alcoentre, which involved 15 prisoners given the chance of training as sappers.
PM Costa actually managed ‘the impossible’ on Saturday by being in three parts of the country in a matter of hours – each time donning forestry-clearing equipment and exhorting people into making the country safe.
Explained the media, he flew from location to location (taking in Loulé in the Algarve, Portalegre in the centre and then Torres Vedras, another 230 kms away) by helicopter.
In Loulé, he worked precisely six minutes and 47 seconds, wrote Observador – and even that was a fairly magnanimous assessment considering that at around minute three of his intervention the chainsaw he was operating stopped working.
In Portalegre, Costa actually picked up a spade, said the website – agreeing that the day was much more about ‘encouraging others’ than making a practical difference.
But as for the nitty-gritty of the technical report that criticised particularly the new rules for cleaning forest areas (click here) – Costa refused to be drawn. “It is a report that needs to be read calmly so that all its messages can be taken on board”, he said.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
