The Madeira Regional Civil Protection and Fire Service reported today that it had registered around 130 incidents in the region due to the bad weather, including the collapse of a wall on a house that left three people homeless.
According to this regional authority, this is the balance of occurrences between 2:30 pm on Tuesday and 8:00 pm today related to the adverse meteorological situation that led the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere to place the north coast of the island of Porto Santo under an orange warning, the second most serious on a scale of four.
Warnings are in force between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm for strong sea agitation, with waves that can reach 10 meters in maximum height, then reducing to yellow.
A yellow warning was also issued for the wind situation with gusts of up to 85 kilometers per hour that could reach 110 kilometers in mountainous areas.
The incidents included 32 fallen trees, 10 collapses of building structures, 18 falls of construction elements, two power outages and 40 “mass movements” that involved 281 operational personnel and 122 technical resources.
Civil Protection reports that the most relevant incidents were the collapse of a wall on a house in the municipality of Ponta do Sol, in the western part of Madeira, which left three people homeless,
There was also a partial collapse of a house in the municipality of Machico, in the far east of Madeira, “without the need for rehousing”.
The most affected municipalities were Funchal with 51 occurrences, Santa Cruz with 39, Machico 10, Ribeira Brava eight, Câmara de Lobos seven, Calheta five and Ponta do Sol three.