We hid in water tank to escape blaze
TWELVE people survived Portugal’s raging forest fire by hiding in a water tank.
The survivors, including a disabled woman of 95, took refuge for six hours after the blaze cut them off from rescuers.
One of the villagers in Nodirinho, next to the IC8 motorway, said: “If it wasn’t for this, we would all have died.” Local Maria do Ceu Silva was hailed a hero for saving her neighbours by evacuating them to her house’s water tank. She got the idea when she tried to save her disabled mother.
Maria said: “My husband told me to put her in the van but she couldn’t get in by herself so she told me, ‘Let me die on the floor’. With the help of my son we managed to take her here.”
The fire, believed to have been started by lightning, has killed at least 62 people in central Portugal. More than 1,000 firefighters were battling the blaze yesterday.