Inferno death toll rises
AT LEAST 62 DEAD: FLAMES CLAIM EIGHT FIREFIGHTERS, 50 PEOPLE HURT
Three days of mourning as scores burn to death inside their cars.
Three days of mourning have been declared after a huge forest fire in central Portugal killed at least 62 people and injured 50 others, including eight firefighters, the government said yesterday.
Several hundred firefighters and 160 vehicles were dispatched late on Saturday to tackle the blaze, which broke out in the afternoon in the municipality of Pedrogao Grande before spreading fast across several fronts.
“The number of fatalities could still rise,” Prime Minister Antonio Costa said at the Civil Protection headquarters near Lisbon.
Secretary of State for the Interior Jorge Gomes earlier said that most of the people confirmed dead were civilians.
“Three of them died from smoke inhalation and 16 burned to death in their cars when they found themselves trapped by flames on the road from Figueiro dos Vinhos to Castanheira de Pera,” Gomes told journalists.
The flames spread “with great violence”, moving out on four fronts, he said.
Portugal was sweltering under a severe heatwave on Saturday, with temperatures exceeding 40°C in several regions.
A number of villages were affected by the blaze and evacuation procedures had been put in place for some of them, the prime minister said.
Officials were not immediately able to comment on the extent of the damage.
Spain dispatched two water-bombing planes yesterday morning to aid the Portuguese fire service on the ground, he said.
The country was hit by a series of fires last year which devastated more than 100 000ha of the mainland. Fires on the island of Madeira in August killed three people, while last year about 40 homes were destroyed and 5 400ha of land burned. –