From: Patrick Salsbury (patrick_at_clari.net)
Date: 11/06/97
Message-ID: <34621AC6.22C@clari.net> Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 11:30:14 -0800 From: Patrick Salsbury <patrick_at_clari.net> Subject: Storms Kill 32 in Southern Spain, Portugal
Here's one from today's ClariNews. Doesn't look like it was preventable,
but the clean-up would probably be helped by independant power systems,
and quick-build shelters or pre-built homes.
Now there's a market-penetration idea... Rather than trying to sell
newcomers on the idea of these new-fangled houses, if they're merely
provided as part of a disaster clean-up program, people would get
something (hopefully) an order of magnitude better than what they lost.
And I imagine we'd have enough trouble keeping up with the disasters
around the world. There'd be business there alone for years on end...
--
Pat
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ClariNet story INTERNATIONAL-STORMS from Reuter / Jose [Logo [Nov 6]
Ribeiro
Storms Kill 32 in Southern Spain, Portugal
Copyright 1997 by Reuters / Thu, 6 Nov 1997 10:49:01 PST
BADAJOZ, Spain (Reuters) - Violent autumn [Photo [Thu, Nov 6]
storms wrought havoc across southern Spain
and Portugal overnight, killing at least 32 FUNCHEIRA, PORTUGAL,
people, smashing homes and destroying 6-NOV-1997: A local resident
crops. stands in front of the ruins
of his house in Funcheira,
The known dead numbered 21 in Spain and 11 Portugal, November 6 after it
in Portugal after the heaviest rains in was destroyed by storms and
memory hit the south-west corner of the heavy rainfalls that hit the
Iberian peninsula Wednesday night, causing south of Portugal late
rivers to overflow and sending mud spilling November 5. [Photo by AFP]
through towns and villages.
But officials in both countries said the toll could rise, with at least six
people still unaccounted for. There were no reports of foreigners among the
victims.
``It was a night of madness, a nightmare. There was water everywhere,''
Manuel Afonso, a resident of the village of Saboia in southern Portugal,
told TSF radio. ``Nobody can remember anything like it,'' he said.
Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, who spent most of the night in
the civil defense headquarters, travelled to the provinces of the Alentejo
and the Algarve, a popular tourist area, Thursday to inspect damage.
``I want to express my condolences to the families of the victims. The
storms exceeded all expectations,'' he said.
In one of the most harrowing cases, a 16-day-old baby boy died after being
wrenched from the arms of his father by flood waters in the southern
Portuguese village of Carreguerio.
In Badajoz, some 250 miles west of Madrid, victims drowned in their homes as
streams and rivers broke their banks. Anxious neighbors gathered around as
the bodies of the victims were carried away.
``Nobody expected this,'' said 33-year-old shopkeeper Jorge Regalado Galindo
as he looked in despair at his flooded shop near the city's river Rivillas.
``I am ruined. Look at it, my store is destroyed,'' he told Reuters. Weather
officials said overnight rainfall in the city reached an awesome
``It was an impossible amount of water for them to control,'' one resident
told Spanish television.
Rescue teams scoured hard-hit areas along the nearby river Guadiana, which
forms the border with Portugal, searching for those missing after days of
rain turned into a downpour.
Dozens of people were trapped by the flash-floods, and roads were up to
three yards deep in some places in the Spanish province.
Among the victims in Portugal was an elderly couple drowned when their house
flooded in the district of Ourique, 125 miles, south of Lisbon.
In Spain, winds of up to 60 mph swept across the provinces of Extremadura
and Andalusia, and major highways were blocked by falling trees and power
lines.
In the province of Castille-La Mancha a building collapsed, although nobody
was injured. In the province of Seville, a church tower was blown down.
Electricity supplies to tens of thousands of people across the country were
cut. But power was restored in some areas after daybreak Thursday.
Although the worst appeared to be over in Portugal, where the storms cut
train links with the south, more rain was forecast for southern Spain.
Spanish Agriculture Minister Loyola de Palacio visited the flood-stricken
areas to evaluate damage to agriculture. But officials said that at least 10
percent of the cotton crop in Andalusia, the main producing area, had been
washed away.
Portugal's minister Fernando Gomes da Silva told Reuters that he hoped to
have a clearer idea of the situation later in the day.
But despite the easing rain in Portugal, there was concern about the risk of
further flooding from the swollen Tagus and Guadiana rivers as Spanish
authorities opened brimming reservoirs upstream to ease the pressure of
water.
The bad weather raised the death toll from storms in Portugal and its
mid-Atlantic Azores islands over the past few days to 40.
Twenty-nine people were killed, buried under tonnes of mud, when torrential
rains triggered a landslide in the village of Ribeira Quente on the Azores
island of Sao Miguel last Friday.
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