The fall of a tree onto a natural gas supply box this afternoon in Coimbra triggered a large release of that fuel, with no injuries or damage reported, a source from the Sapadores Firefighters told the Lusa agency.
“It was a situation with some danger due to the continuous release of a large amount of gas into the public road, with cars very close by, but when we arrived we managed to close the safety valve and mobilize specialized technicians,” explained Chief Bruno Serra.
According to the firefighter, it was a large tree that fell around 14:30 onto a gas supply box on Afonso Romão Street, which feeds the social services of the University Hospitals of Coimbra.
Two teams of forest firefighters from the Intermunicipal Community of the Coimbra Region were also dispatched to the scene, who cut the tree so that gas technicians could repair the leak, which around 16:10 had been completed.
The Coimbra Sapadores Firefighters were on site with 23 operatives and seven vehicles.
Fifteen people have died in Portugal since January 28 as a result of the passage of depressions Kristin, Leonardo and Marta, which also caused hundreds of injuries and displacements.
Total or partial destruction of houses, businesses and equipment, the uprooting of trees and structures, the closure of roads, schools and transport services, and the outages of electricity, water and communications, floods and inundations are the main material consequences of the storm.
The Centro, Lisbon and Tagus Valley and Alentejo regions are the most affected.
The Government extended the state of calamity until Sunday for 68 municipalities and announced relief measures of up to 2.5 billion euros.
