Broken shop windows and cars dragged by the force of the water, flooded houses and shops. It is the result of torrential rains that hit southern Portugal, especially the Algarve and the city of Faro. Here, in the capital of the region, the Civil Protection has registered about 90 emergencies out of the more than 180 registered in this stretch of the southern coast of the country.
The damage, not yet quantified in detail, would have been particularly serious due to the fact that the weather forecasts had not calculated the extent of the incoming bad weather, leaving the rescue teams unprepared.
According to a complaint by a group of local amateur meteorologists, later picked up by the national media, the failure to forecast was due to a failure of the Portuguese Institute of Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) radar installed in the nearby city of Loulè. The IPMA then confirmed that the fault had existed since 16 November and that they are awaiting a spare part from Germany.
