Further landslides have added today to the desperation in Almada where hundreds of people have already been told they may never be able to return to their homes.
The cliffside collapses are being blamed on the weeks of rain – but the reality is that these properties have always been vulnerable as they are sited in areas either beneath or on top of hillsides with friable soil
What happened in the early hours of this morning was that another deluge of earth and stones ‘invaded three properties – the inhabitants of which had previously been evacuated in an earlier landslide (see video).
This time round, it is hard to say whether or not the residents will be allowed back.
Mayor Inês Medeiros has already admitted that in the case of hundreds in the neighbourhood of Porto Brandão, conditions may be far too perilous.
For now, the 20 people evacuated from Rua Duarte Pacheco Pereira are being temporarily housed in the local Inatel campsite. They have been added to the 230 others already living in emergency housing provided by the local authority.
Almada’s headache is far from over: Teams from the NOVA university’s Faculty of Science and Technology have been working on these ‘landslide issues’ since 2023 – trying to evaluate how the municipality can ‘move forwards’.
According to reports, the teams will continue to monitor the riverside ‘slope’ and the ‘fossil cliff’ that has been ‘subsiding’ in recent bad weather.
Almada municipality has also enlisted the expertise of LNEC (the national laboratory of civil engineering).
Source material: SIC Notícias
