Extreme phenomenon leaves Lisbon flooded. ″It will happen again. It’s inevitable”
“I saw things very complicated around midnight”, admitted this Thursday the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, after the previous night had been “very difficult” due to the amount of rain that fell in the city. In a few hours, heavy rainfall left the capital flooded.
The water entered homes, garages, commercial establishments, flooded metro and train stations, turned roads into rivers and Campo Grande tunnel in a “swimming pool three meters deep”, stressed Coins. “And my anguish as mayor was thinking about what could be in three meters of depth”, he acknowledged, before pointing out that “fortunately there are no serious injuries in the municipality of Lisbon, but there is a lot of material damage”.
According to the mayor, “14 people were rescued, who were in a very difficult situation”, some of whom were inside cars and had to abandon their vehicles. “The water level rose so much, that the anguish was great. People were rescued without major incidents or injuries”, said the mayor, noting that there were, above all, situations of “anxiety and great fright”.
It was a “very extreme meteorological phenomenon, with an impact mainly in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon and in neighboring municipalities”, classified Patrícia Gaspar, Secretary of State for Internal Administrationduring a situation, in which he mourned the only fatal victim, a woman — who initially the firefighters reported to be 55 years old but who later, according to neighbors, turned out to be 75 –, who was registered in Algés, in the municipality of Oeiras , one of the safest zones for bad weather.
Almost two thousand occurrences (1977) were registered across the country on Wednesday night, but in the Lisbon district alone there were 913, the National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection (ANEPC) counted. “We had more than 300 occurrences in Lisbon. Basically, it rained, between 17:00 and 01:00, 87 millimeters of water, something that has not been seen since 2014”, highlighted Carlos Moedas. Numbers that illustrate well the amount of rain that fell in some areas of the city, in a few hours, since the average values of precipitation for the whole month of December are around 126 millimeters for Lisbon, told Lusa meteorologist Patrícia Gomes from the Institute Portuguese Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA).
And the worst thing is that these extreme weather conditions will be repeated in the city of Lisbon, warned Carlos Moedas. “It will happen again. It is inevitable” due to climate change, which “is here to stay”, he explained, then making a request to Lisbon residents: “Don’t risk it, ask for help”.
Mayor highlights the importance of drainage tunnels for the future of the city
Faced with what was experienced in the capital, the mayor led to future solutions and highlighted the importance of the drainage tunnels designed for the city (see secondary part). Precisely on Wednesday, “by coincidence”, the budget was approved in the Municipal Assembly that “gives the ability to start as early as March” these works, which are considered and which should be completed by 2025.
There are “two tunnels, one that will go from Campolide Santa Apolónia and the other between Chelas and Beato”, allowing “to drain all this water in case of rain, with a reservoir of 17 thousand cubic meters”, detailed the mayor. An infrastructure that will prepare Lisbon for the future, so that “these situations do not occur in our city”, he underlined. Moedas immediately asked Lisbon residents for “patience”, as the work will have an impact on mobility, but, he repeated, the infrastructure “is essential”.
The mayor of Lisbon said that all the damage is being analyzed, stressing that we are facing “extreme phenomena”. “Assessing the damage, we can then look at, case by case, what happened”, he declared, also guaranteeing that support will be considered. Several merchants followed yesterday morning to make payments and start cleaning work.
Oeiras was another municipality in Greater Lisbon heavily affected by heavy rain, especially Algés, where there was a fatality. In Amadora, more than 100 people even had to be removed from their homes due to the landslide around 200 meters from the houses of Casal de São Vicente, in the parish of Mina de Água. Just yesterday, residents were able to return to their homes.
In total, the bad weather in Greater Lisbon caused 27 people to be displaced, nine in Odivelas, six in Amadora and 12 in Loures, according to Civil Protection.