Portugal Situation Report Wednesday 14^th September 2022

Good morning – As forecast there has been a dramatic change in weather with the focus being on tropical storms. This is the tropical storm season so these are expected and we will have to wait and see how many there will be and how many reach the Portugal mainland as “Hurricanes”. Daniel decreased in intensity considerably as it moved closer to Portugal and the affects were, with one or two exceptions, little more than from a normal winter storm.

The main areas affected by the rain and winds were in the centre and the north of the mainland, and although there were over 700 occurrences report to the ANEPC from midnight to 1600 hrs yesterday, most were relatively minor. One exception was, however, in Sameiro parish, Manteigas municipality Guarda District, where there was moderate damage to property and vehicles.  This will do little, however, to ease the drought situation, especially in the south of the country.

Hurricanes are different matters and as we have seen in the past have caused extensive damage and pose considerable risk to public safety when they hit populated areas. Luckily a full force Hurricane hitting the mainland is rare and most loose intensity beforehand, as they reach cooler waters.

Such storms if coinciding with ongoing wildfires present particular risks. Starting on 15 October 2017, winds from post-tropical cyclone Ophelia fanned wildfires in both Portugal and Spain. The wildfires have claimed the lives of at least 49 individuals, including 45 in Portugal and four in Spain, and dozens more were injured. In Portugal, more than 4,000 firefighters battled around 150 fires. The US National Hurricane Centre’s Tropical Cyclone Report on Hurricane Ophelia makes no mention of the fires, thus the associated fatalities are not included as part of the storm total.

Cyclone Vince from 8-11 October 2005 was the first known tropical cyclone to reach the Iberian Peninsula. Hurricane Leslie (2018) and Subtropical Storm Alpha (2020) are two more recent examples of tropical-like cyclones that impacted the Iberian Peninsula.

Leslie made landfall in the central region of Portugal, resulting in extensive material damage in Figueira da Foz, and placed thirteen districts under red warning due to strong winds and waves. It was considered the biggest storm to hit Portugal since 1842.

The Azores is more exposed, but fortunately in this case the trajectory of Hurricane Danielle meant that it did hit the archipelago – unlike Hurricane Lorenzo in September 2019 which caused extensive damage.

It is therefore important to be prepared. For this reason we have developed a page on our website which is based on government information on tropical cyclones, how to be prepared and precautions to take.  Basic advice is to follow and study the evolution of a cyclone/hurricane through weather reports. Usually there is plenty of warning, although they can change course at the last minute. This can be downloaded here.

https://www.safecommunitiesportugal.com/find-information/environment-and-weather/cyclones/

At this time of the year we are moving from fires to possible floods. One potential danger is the impact of heavy rain on locations that are downhill and downstream from burned areas and are therefore highly susceptible to Flash Flooding and Debris Flows, especially in, and near, steep terrain.

We published an awareness post about this on Monday on our Facebook page and the following, day the President of Camara Municipal de Manteigas, gave the following statement, accompanied by photographs, of the considerable damaged caused by flash floods and landslips in the municipality overnight.

Nothing can be done to prevent the rain but knowing your local area and possible vulnerable points in such storms, and therefore being prepared, can do much in reducing casualties and even damage to property.

Our team wishes you a Safe week ahead

News

Pedrógão Grande fires trial comes to an end with all defendants acquitted

The Leiria Court sought to find responsibility for the deaths and injuries of the June 2017 fire.

Despite the prosecution’s accusation, the court found that there was no link between the defendants’ actions and/or omissions and the unique phenomenon that happened and caused the deaths in the 2017 fire.

The panel of judges looked at the disorganized forestland utilization and at the weather factors, concluding: “these fatalities happened and would happen”, regardless of the actions of mayors, firefighters and involved companies employees. They would happen regardless of the existence or not of the fuel management lane on national road 236, according to the panel of judges.

The Court found that at the time of the fires, “the municipality of Pedrógão Grande comprised 72% of its area with dense continuous forest areas, essentially consisting of maritime pine, eucalyptus and acacia, with high fuel load and highly flammable”.

According to the court, “between 8:00 pm and 8:20 pm on June 17, 2017, in the area of Estrada Nacional (EN) 236-1, which connects Castanheira de Pera to Figueiró dos Vinhos, a convective column of the fire, ‘a downburst’, fell vertically towards the ground, from a height of about 13 kms. This resulted in a ‘rain’ of projections and generated wind of great intensity carrying particles of fire and incandescent material, which after hitting the ground, blew radially in all directions, with speeds of the order of 100 to 130 km/h”.

The judicial magistrates considered that this situation presented “fire intensity values (radiation) in the order of 60,000” kilovolts/meter, in addition to the flame length of up to 80 meters, with temperatures in the order of 900 to 1,200 degrees Celsius, and dense smoke that nullified visibility.

The court clarified that “the formation and subsequent fall of the convective column/’downburst’ described above is an extreme, rare and unpredictable pyro-meteorological phenomenon, and it was the first time that such a phenomenon was recorded in Portugal and throughout the European continent.

The defendants were the commander of the Volunteer Firefighters of Pedrógão Grande, Augusto Arnaut, then responsible for rescue operations, two employees of the former EDP Distribuição, José Geria and Casimiro Pedro, and three workers from Ascendi (Rogério Mota, José Revés and Ugo Berardinelli). Also the former mayors of Castanheira de Pera and Pedrógão Grande, Fernando Lopes and Valdemar Alves, respectively. And the mayor of Figueiró dos Vinhos, Jorge Abreu, as well as the former vice-mayor of Pedrógão Grande José Graça and the then responsible for the Forestry Office of this municipality, Margarida Gonçalves, were also among the defendants.

At issue in this trial were criminal charges of criminally negligent homicide and negligent offence against physical integrity.

More than 300 commanders, command elements and association leaders of Portuguese firefighters were present at the entrance of the court this morning to support Commander Augusto Arnaut of the Pedrógão Grande firefighters, who was one of the defendants in this case. 

PSP recorded about 2,300 criminal incidents in schools in the last school year

Lisbon, Sep 13, 2022 (Lusa) – The PSP recorded around 3,300 occurrences in schools, 2,300 of which were criminal, during the last school year, an increase compared to the last two years, marked by confinements resulting from the covid-19 pandemic, the PSP reported today.

Data from the Public Security Police were released on the day the 2022/2023 school year begins and on which the PSP guarantees that it will dedicate “special attention” to the safety of the 3,100 schools, involving a total of 150,000 teachers and non-teaching staff and more than 900,000 students, in its area of responsibility.

The figures are  ​​lower than those of the last school years before the beginning of the pandemic, in 2019.

The PSP underlines that within the scope of Escola Segura, which this year completes 30 years of existence, special attention is paid to the surroundings of schools.

In addition to the Escola Segura teams, with police officers specifically trained to carry out proximity policing in a school environment, the PSP mobilizes and complements its activity with other operational skills, such as auto policing teams, traffic inspection and road safety and criminal investigation, according to that police.

The PSP specifies that these teams prioritize “visibility and proximity”, “prevention of criminal offenses” and “information and awareness of the school community, through group interactions in the school environment”.

In each academic year, the PSP carries out around 13,500 awareness-raising and crime prevention actions, covering around 400,000 students from the different levels of public and private non-university education.

The PSP stresses that the challenges of the school year that begins today are to reinforce the behaviour of drivers and pedestrians, fully resume information and awareness actions for the school community, continue to support the school community in detecting signs of victimization (both in physical and virtual), encourage mediate reporting to the PSP for immediate verification and maintain the ability to identify cyberbullying situations as early as possible.

The PSP also provides an email address Escolasegura@psp.pt for reporting crimes and clarifying issues related to safety in schools.

Slavery

50 million people worldwide in modern slavery

The United Nations says there are almost 28 million slaves worldwide and of these, more than three million are children. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the number of people forced to work has increased by 10% in the last four years.

In 2022, according to the United Nations, there are 2 7.6 million people in slavery around the world.

According to the same source, this number has increased significantly over the last few years, and, in the last four years alone, it has increased by 10%. Of these millions of people who are forced to work without any dignity, 3.3 million are children.

These figures now published raise serious concerns among world entities, which point to extreme poverty, wars, climate change and the pandemic as the main causes of this global scourge.

“We know we have to protect people from the vulnerabilities that are at the heart of forced labour. We have to improve recruitment practices, so they are fair and ethical. We have to strengthen labour inspection and law enforcement. All these things, we know what works, we’re just not doing it enough,” said Guy Ryder, Director General of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

According to the ILO, the vast majority of situations currently taking place in the richest countries on the planet, such as Dubai and China. The country on the Arabian Peninsula has been the subject of intense scrutiny due to the situations reported by several workers involved in the construction work of the stadiums that will be used in the Football World Cup.