Month: September 2016

The National Guard, the Public Security Police, the Judicial Police and the Tax and Customs Authority conducted throughout the national territory, on 6 and 7 September, the European operation “JPO Cars”. This involved the control and monitoring of vehicles on land and sea borders, in order to detect vehicle crime, with a particular focus on trafficking and match-fixing cars.

In the two days of the operation, 19739 cars, 2255 people and 3018 documents, were checked resulting in:

21 seized vehicles, especially:

• Five for fraud;
• Five for tax debts;
• Two for theft.

13 people were arrested, among them being an individual for illegally in the country who went missing in France two years ago. The detainee, with a criminal record in France for theft, violence and sexual assault, had no residence permit in the Schengen area. He was arrested while trying to leave the country, towards France.

174 notices of administrative offense, mainly by road and environmental violations were issued.

On 7th September 2016, a person with a shirt over his head entered the Montepio Bank in Quarteira and produced a knife. He threatened a woman customer and stole €700.

He then fled from the bank, and was chased by a customer and a bank staff.

GNR arrived at the scene but the person had escaped. The case was handed over to the Judicial Police who are studying CCTV footage and examaning fingerprints.

 

Given the increasing number and severity of forest fires this year’s Safe Communities Portugal launches today a new initiative aimed at creating greater awareness of the risk of fires, as well as the various weather conditions that increase the risk to public safety.

Entitled “Daily Safety Checks” it encourages people to check each day to ascertain, where there are fires, the daily fire risk, any flooding or other occurrences as well as the UV and weather alerts, so people can adjust their activities accordingly.

This is aimed at all communities and visitors to help gain access through a “one stop shop”, to the main government sites that contain information that people need to know in order to keep safe.

This can be accessed from the home page on the Safe Communities Portugal website, through a set of lights. It then takes visitors to the page where access to all the relevant safety information can be accessed through the appropriate link.

David Thomas President of Safe Communities Portugal said “It is very important that people get into the habit of making daily checks, particularly if venturing into the country areas, in order to ensure they are not putting themselves at increased risk, through example forest fires in summer and flooding in winter. This also helps the emergency services as in the event of forest fire for instance the number of potential victims can be reduced.

These areas can be avoided by simply checking the conditions beforehand. Likewise it is important that people especially visitors understand the dangers of prolonged exposure to high levels of UV”. The aim of this initiative is to support government efforts to create awareness and help the community gain access easily to public safety information.

On the same page is a direct link to all the emergency numbers and hotlines in case of emergencies.

The information can be found along with our public safety advice on www.safecommunitiesportugal.com

It was reported last night (6th September 2016) that the area of Paradela “has been completely evacuated, as well as Cabeceiras de Basto, Soure and Pena Ribeira as fighting the flames was are too complicated.

About two dozen people in the place of the Várzea, Soajo, Arcos de Valdevez, and Ponte da Barca, and military GNR are held in that town because of a forest fire, according to Civil Protection.

The councilor of the municipal civil protection Arcos de Valdevez, Olegario Gonçalves, said that “the people and the GNR were stranded because the fire took hold of the access road that place.” “They’re waiting for the first opportunity to be able to leave,” he added.

The councilman said, however, that the removal of residents in Várzea “is for now in ‘standby’, as firefighters try to control the flames.”

Olegario Gonçalves told Lusa that the area of ​​the Peneda Geres Park (PGNP) “there were dead animals”, without specifying the number and “some inhabitants of that place were at risk of life because they have been surrounded by the flames.”

The commander of Arcos de Valdevez fire operation, Delfim Mota told SIC Noticias that there are several fires along the housing and which has several teams to fight the blaze on site. Several people suffered smoke inhalation when they try to protect their homes and had to be assisted.

A couple of Paradela, place already evacuated Soajo, Ponte da Barca, was transported by INEM to hospital with burns on his face, said Councilman Civil Protection. Olegario Gonçalves did not know the extent of the burns victims who were hit while fighting a fire near his home. Also he did not mention age.

Robalo Simões, second operational commander of the Civil Protection of Viana do Castelo, he added that another person was taken to the Hospital of Lima by inhalation of fumes.

Delfim Mota added that the strong wind and high temperature make “a small fire into a large fire.” The commander said that there is “lack of air support.”

According to the information given on the site of the Civil Protection, the site is about 54 operational supported by 21 vehicles and an air environment.

Delfim Mota added that “the situation is already getting back to normal in the town of Paradela.” Although the fire has already passed this village, there are no conditions for people to return to their homes.

The villages of Paradela and Lugar da Várze, in Arcos de Valdevez municipality, were evacuated due to this fire. According Olegario Gonçalves, the place of Paradela “has been completely evacuated.”

More and more records of incidents involving drones on the perimeter of the airport Humberto Delgado in Lisbon.

The last one took place on Wednesday and involved an aircraft of the Portuguese Air Force. According to the Express military aircraft was about to land on runway 35 Portela when a drone went about three meters from the apparatus. The collision was narrowly averted. The military unit was taken off the air base 4 on Terceira Island in the Azores. The report states that the plane was about to touch the ground with the landing gear when crossed with the drone.

This Friday the target of one of these small flying devices was a TAP plane. The incident occurred during landing in Lisbon when a laser beam fired from a drone penetrated the cockpit hit the co-pilot in the eye. The crew reported pain in her left eye several hours. The apparatus of the national carrier came from Rome in Italy, and was carrying 150 passengers.

The cases are different and increasingly frequent. In April this year, there was another instance at Lisbon airport involving an airliner coming from Madrid. It was in 2014 that the first cases involving unmanned aerial vehicles along the tracks from Lisbon airport were reported.

These events merited the attention of the National Institute of Civil Aviation, but still lacks specific legislation regulating the use of drones.