Man swept up by floodwater suffers heart attack
No sooner had tropical storm Danielle arrived in Portugal than reports of damages started ‘flooding in’.
Flooding was registered in various parts of the country – the worst hit areas being parts of Lisbon, Sintra and Setúbal.
In Massamá (Lisbon) the strength of moving water swept a man off his feet who went on to suffer a heart attack. At time of writing, he was being treated in hospital after arriving in cardio-respiratory arrest.
Elsewhere, Civil Protection has been inundated with requests for help. Within the first eight hours of the bad weather hitting, there had been nearly 380 emergency calls. By this morning, that number had nearly doubled.
The majority of calls were about flooding and fallen trees. Various houses have suffered damages in the Lisbon area and elsewhere, as well as vehicles (ditto). Access to the IC19 was cut today during the worst of the downpours.
SIC television news reports that the strength of floodwaters was such that they blew manhole covers off, damaging vehicles in the process.
In the north, areas around Serra da Estrela/ Manteigas were also badly affected, with the rains dragging earth and detritus from areas recently burnt, making a bad situation even worse.
Mayor of Manteigas Flávio Massano has described the damage as “enormous”, affecting at least two parishes.
“Several cars were dragged by the force of the water; there are houses affected, businesses affected, roads, public illumination, water and sewage infrastructures, sports and leisure equipment”, he lamented.
After a terrible summer marked by days of uncontrollable wildfires, Danielle has simply added to Manteigas’ terrible misfortunes.
In Grândola, the local police station suffered the ignominy of buckets all over the floor catching rainwater from a defective roof.
Only the Algarve, up till now, appears to have been spared as Danielle’s passage this far has not really been intense enough. Welcome rain has fallen, but the region needs a great deal more.
As for the forecast, rain is expected to stay over the country for most of the rest of the week.
