One person is dead, two have been seriously injured and 26 were hurt this morning as Albufeira was battered by the latest round with Storm Claudia.
The details of the fatality, and the worst injured are coming through. Initially, reports were that one person was ‘missing’.
The peak of this morning’s damage appears to have hit Hotel Eden and the nearby HolaCamp campsite.
Hotel Eden is understood to have suffered a lot of damage. According to CMTV, part of its front was ‘ripped off’ . It is there that 19 people were reported injured, one seriously. Their ages have since been given by civil protection commander Vítor Vaz Pinto as between 6 and 86; nationalities as Portuguese, Spanish and British.
Early reports said two people were seriously injured at the HolaCamp campsite, where another was described as ‘missing’. That missing person then became this morning’s fatality; an 85-year-old British woman, identified by Albufeira mayor Rui Cristina, whose body was later found buried under debris.
The ‘extreme wind phenomenon’ hit some time after 10am, while the entire Algarve, and districts of Beja and Setúbal were on orange alert.
SIC Notícias has been speaking with some of the campers present at HolaCamp this morning, hearing exactly what happened. One, named as Yuri, explained that the phenomenon actually passed in front of his caravan. “It was very frightening. You could see it passing below us. The sky went dark. Everything was flying in the air”. And when he went to see if there was anything he could do to help in the ‘valley area of the camp’ which had been in the line of fire, the scene was “like a war zone (…) caravans weighing tons in the middle of the road, roofs, people crying everywhere”.
In fact, hopes for those who have ‘lost everything’ are that the campsite can step in in some way to help, he said.
For the time being, reporters are not being allowed into the campsite, which has promised it will be making a statement shortly.
Claudia has been felling trees since she hit the mainland midweek.
Rain and high winds are due to continue over the weekend and into Monday, albeit the ‘destructive element’ of this storm is diminishing.
This has not stopped flooding in low-lying areas – particularly downtown Albufeira which sits on a floodplain.
Meteorologist Ângela Lourenço working out of IPMA (institute of sea and atmosphere) has said the institute is “still analysing data” on today’s extreme wind to determine its category (ie it may be that it was a tornado).
She told Lusa that there was a line that crossed the entire southern region and had ‘some organised convection’, giving rise to an intense wind phenomenon. However, at 12.30 today this line was already entering Spain.
Faro too came off badly in this morning’s weather – having also suffered flooding and localised damages on Thursday; while reports of trees falling have come in from across the Algarve.
According to Civil Protection, rescue teams are now removing fallen branches from trees and parts of affected structures. Advice remains that the population needs to avoid risky situations, as Claudia could trigger new episodes of heavy rain and wind in the coming hours.
Reporting on this morning’s damages, SIC Notícias spoke with a bus driver collecting tourists from Hotel Eden when the extreme wind struck.
“I had just arrived. I opened the door and was projected right into the vehicle. The people coming were hit by glass and roof tiles. I was lucky, but the hotel suffered a lot of damage”, he told SIC.
President Marcelo has lamented this morning’s tragedy, sending his solidarity to the family of the fatal victim, and wishing a speedy recovery to all the injured.
It is understood that the most of the people who have suffered injuries are being treated in the local health centre, while the worst injured have been transported to Faro hospital.
See below an overview of some of the storm damage
