Portugal Safety and Security Report Wednesday 16th October 2024
Good afternoon. This week we commemorate all those who lost their lives in the October 2017 rural fires. In just over 24 hours there were over 500 fires in 40 municipalities in the Centre and North region on mainland Portugal. 51 people died. In addition nearly 1,500 homes and 500 businesses were damaged or destroyed and 290,000 hectares of forest burned.
The independent technical commission created by the Assembly of the Republic to analyse what happened concluded that the fires of October 2017 were an unprecedented phenomenon, resulting from the combination of meteorological factors. Still, the report pointed out several shortcomings: it failed to “forecast and schedule” the ability to “minimize the extent” of fires in the face of weather forecasts of high temperatures and wind.
Just a day before the fires the President of the Republic had spoken about the findings of the report into the Pedrogão Grande fire in June (where 66 had died and 204 injured). Just prior to the October fires the IPMA had issued orange warnings due to the approach of Hurricane Ophelia with associated high temperatures. The warnings were there.
Many lessons have been learned from these terrible events with so many lives lost, homes destroyed and businesses and livelihoods lost. Many actions have been put in place and still to be completed to prevent similar tragedies, with an increased emphasis on prevention and self-protection.
From fire to floods. There is little doubt that October has been a very wet month. In terms of percentage distribution by classes of the PDSI index on the continent, at the end of September it was found: 1.5% in the moderate rain class, 4.8% in the light rain class, 24.2% in the normal class, 23.3% in the weak drought class, 32.4% in the moderate drought class and 13.6% in the severe drought class. The moderate and severe drought class affects the southern half of the mainland, although with the rains this month in the south this should improve the situation.
The cause of much of the bad weather has been the depressions mainly forming in the Atlantic and the remnants of various hurricanes such as the remnants of Hurricane Milton that merged with Tropical Storm Leslie. IPMA yellow and orange warnings have been issued as well as ANEPC with preventive measures. It is important that everyone reads these in order to help protect themselves as well as their property. The warnings are issued in respect of the weather forecasts.
These forecasts are based on various models. Given the nature of precipitation this does not mean that it will be continuous in districts where a warning has been issued say an orange warning. Showers imply the weather will change a lot during the day with rain on and off, whereas rain will bring continuous wet weather for hours at a time, and then it will clear. Where it states “showers which may be heavy at times”, it means exactly that. It is quite hit and miss where they occur, and this means that you could get heavy showers on and off through the day, whereas in the next town their weather stays dry all day
The National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority (ANEPC) annually promotes the nationwide Public Exercise to Raise Awareness of Seismic Risk, called A TERRA TREME (www.aterratreme.pt). https://www.aterratreme.pt/o-exercicio/
This year, the 12th Edition will take place on 5th November, at 11:05 hrs, coinciding with World Tsunami Awareness Day.
The objective of this exercise is to train the population to know how to act before, during and after an earthquake namely to know the preventive measures and self-protection behaviours to adopt to protect themselves. There will be more on this as we approach the date. We encourage everyone to participate.
With that our team wishes you all a safe week ahead.
News
MAI considers video surveillance an asset to prevent crime in Porto
The Ministry of Internal Affairs today considered video surveillance to be an added value for preventing and combating crime in Porto, but warned of the need for a balance between promoting security and respecting freedoms.
A few hours after the announcement that the Government had given authorization to the municipality of Porto to proceed with the expansion of video surveillance, the order was published in the Official Gazette.
“Video surveillance systems are an added value in preventing and combating crime and in promoting collective security and this is an inescapable fact in the municipality of Porto”, reads the order signed by the Secretary of State for Internal Administration, Telmo Correia.
Despite the importance of these systems, the Ministry warns that their implementation must “always follow best practices and a balance” between promoting security and respecting citizens’ rights and freedoms.
In this sense, the authorization for the expansion of the system requires compliance with several conditions, some of which had already been highlighted by the National Data Protection Commission (CNPD) in the two opinions it issued in this regard.
“The video surveillance system must be operated in such a way as to guarantee the effective safeguarding of privacy and security, fully complying with the applicable legal provisions and the recommendations made”, it indicates.
In the ruling, the supervisory authority also states that it is up to the PSP, in conjunction with other public entities, to ensure compliance with the CNPD’s recommendations, especially with regard to technical and monitoring issues, such as the need for the system to contain means of alerting in the event of unauthorized access attempts.
The 117 cameras, to be installed on streets in the Asprela, Campanhã, Estádio do Dragão, Pasteleira and Diogo Botelho areas, will join the 79 cameras that began operating on June 22, 2023 in the city center and which have already preserved images relating to 910 criminal proceedings.