After years where a heavy downpour of rain can see city streets inundated and pedestrians wading waist high in floodwaters, Lisbon council has announced it has a plan. It is going to dig two tunnels, the largest to run 5km from Santa Apolónia to Monsanto, with the other excavated between Chelas and Beato.
The €170 million project was presented on Monday and should be complete by 2019.
Said the city’s Mayor Fernando Medina, this represents the “most important and structuring” plan for decades and will at last see Lisbon “combat the (perennial) floods and consequences thereof on the lives of families and businesses”.
The tunnels are to be part of the greater project dubbed The General Drainage Plan of Lisbon 2016-2030.
