Homeless || Householders were horrified this weekend as a terrifying landslide swept houses away in the “barreiras” area of Santarém.
It was a miracle no one was killed, said the town’s mayor Susana Pita Soares – and just incredibly lucky that no cars were passing the section of road engulfed by earth.
But the problem, she told reporters, has been known for as much as a decade and “successive governments have done nothing”.
“The situation is serious. We have sounded alerts, told the government of our concerns, but there has never been any kind of intervention. This needs to be fixed.”
The problem lies in instability of the “barriers” on which houses and apartments have been built.
Now, technicians of national engineering laboratory LNEC have been called in, and the community is waiting to see what will happen next.
Meantime, the only people left homeless from the landslide – an elderly couple – have been rehoused in the home of relatives, while the EN114 remains closed until the authorities can “ensure conditions of safety”.
