The Mayor of Leiria, Gonçalo Lopes, said on Wednesday that it feels as though Portugal is “a make-believe country”, criticising what he described as a serious lack of communication and admitting that his own tolerance is beginning to run out.
“I am the one putting my face to this every day, communicating the little information I have,” he told journalists. “The process has to be more transparent, it has to be clearer. During the Covid pandemic we had briefings and nationwide communication about what was happening. Now, nobody communicates, or they don’t want to communicate. It feels like we are living in a make-believe country.”
The remarks were made at the Leiria Firefighters’ headquarters, where the municipality’s operations centre has been set up following the passage of Storm Kristin, which severely affected the Central Portuguese district a week ago, transforming it into the pinnacle of the storm’s devastation.
Asked whether his comments were directed at the Government, led by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro of the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist Party mayor said that “what happened in Leiria is far too serious for there not to be credible and transparent communication about the progress of repairs to the networks”.
“The level of scrutiny applied to my work as a politician must also be applied to those responsible for managing national networks, whether water supply or electricity,” he added. “There has to be greater transparency.”
According to Lopes, transparency means clearly explaining what work is being carried out, what resources are available and what progress is being made. “Saying: ‘we are doing this work, we have these means, from yesterday to today we repaired a tower’. That level of information must exist to build trust,” he said.
While acknowledging the efforts being made by companies responsible for public services, the mayor stressed that “someone has to be held accountable, and accountability is not being provided”.
He also said he was unaware of a visit to Leiria on Wednesday by the Minister for the Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, who was reportedly in the area to monitor repair work on the electricity network.
“I was not informed of this visit, I accept that they may have tried to contact me,” he said, adding that “there has been a constant flow of leaders from various sectors passing through, but concrete actions or tangible results are not being seen”.
Gonçalo Lopes warned that there is a “total blackout” in rural parishes of the municipality, where electricity has still not been restored a week after Storm Kristin.
“The blackout is so severe that it is mainly the populations in the urban parishes who have power,” he said. “Once you move a few kilometres away from the city, it is a complete blackout.”
According to the mayor, the restoration of electricity is progressing “at a slow pace”. He said he was particularly concerned about more remote areas with limited access to public infrastructure, including water, electricity, and communications.
“People living in the more rural parishes are going through dramatic moments, because they have been without power for more than seven days,” he warned.
“The restoration phase we had planned is taking far longer than expected, placing these populations in a state of concern and alarm that calls for a much faster and more decisive strategy,” he argued, stressing the need not only to restore high-voltage supply but also to urgently repair low-voltage distribution networks.
The mayor said the situation could have been mitigated with the “massive deployment of generators”, avoiding what he described as “enormous damage to people’s lives”.
He listed the affected areas as Monte Real, Carvide, Souto da Carpalhosa, Coimbrão, Monte Redondo, Bajouca, Bidoeira, Colmeias, Memória, Caranguejeira and Santa Catarina da Serra, “the entire outer arc that depends on high-voltage supply and whose electricity provision has been severely affected”.
“These are the populations that are suffering, and there are many of them,” he said.
For Mayor Lopes, “the level of despair and tolerance is beginning to run out”, both for himself and for residents. “Seven days is a dramatic milestone, because a faster response was not achieved,” he added, arguing that “the speed of the response needs to be assessed”.
Since last week, ten people have died as a result of the severe weather. Civil Protection has confirmed five deaths directly linked to Storm Kristin, while the Marinha Grande council reported another fatality. These were followed by four additional deaths caused by roof falls during repair work or by generator-related intoxication.
The storm caused total or partial destruction of homes, businesses and equipment, as well as fallen trees and structures, road closures and disruptions to transport services, particularly railways, school closures, and widespread cuts to electricity, water and communications. Hundreds of people were injured or displaced.
Leiria, Coimbra, and Santarém were the districts most severely affected.
The Government has declared a state of calamity until next Sunday for 68 municipalities, and announced a support package worth up to €2.5 billion.
Source: DN
