With 5,000 households still surviving without electricity as a result of recent storms that battered large swathes of the country, SIC Notícias brings the news that the water ‘discharged’ from dams up and down the country (because they became too full) has been estimated as ‘equivalent to 50 years worth of human consumption in Portugal”.
SIC traveled to the Aguieira dam on the Mondego River – a dam used for hydroelectric power generation, and which was the most talked-about during the first weeks of this month because of the flooding risks posed by the Mondego, which threatened to inundate large areas of Coimbra.
A review of the flood level is now being requested (this being the maximum value that the dam should reach when critical periods approach) – but, for now, the dam that almost constantly had to discharge water between January 29 and mid-February is back to its usual calm, with spillways tightly closed.
Life in and around all the nation’s dams is returning to ‘normal’ – albeit normal is nowhere near the situation in the worst-hit communities, some of which are still without power and others facing weeks of rebuilding work for houses and business premises.
Source material: SIC Notícias
