The Minister of Finance said today that Portugal must prepare for extreme events, such as the storms that battered the country at the start of the year, with more resilience and preparation.
In a speech at a conference in Lisbon, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento stressed that “fortunately, the storm [this Wednesday] ended up having very limited effects”.
Nevertheless, he emphasized that the country “has to prepare for these extreme events, must have more resilience and preparation”.
In this regard, the official recalled that, after the February storms, the Government launched the Portugal Transformation, Recovery and Resilience Plan (PTRR), for which 270 million euros are foreseen in the next budget.
The Charles depression prompted the activation of the alert status across the entire mainland Portugal territory from 00:00 to 23:59 on Wednesday.
The National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection registered more than 1,600 occurrences related to bad weather on the mainland, mainly floods, fallen trees and landslides, while in Madeira, the first region to suffer the storm’s effects, there were more than 300.
In addition to the closure of schools and non-essential public services, the bad weather led to the cancellation of several hundred flights and the closure of roads.
