Year: 2017

Parish councils will be able to create local civil protection units to raise awareness and inform the local population and support the management of occurrences, such as fires, in the scope of the transfer of competences to the local authorities.

According to the agency Lusa, the office of the Secretary of State for Internal Administration, Jorge Gomes, local civil protection units can be set up at the initiative of the parish council and after a favorable opinion from the municipal civil protection commission.

Chaired by the president of the board, these local units participate “in the assessment of vulnerabilities, in public awareness and information and in support of incident management, as defined in the emergency plans.”

Decentralization of competences in the area of ​​civil protection also covers municipal emergency plans, which are no longer approved by the National Civil Protection Commission and are approved by the municipal assembly after a binding opinion from the National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC).

According to the office of Jorge Gomes, municipalities will assume responsibility for fire safety in buildings, in particular as regards the approval of projects and conducting inspections, if the city councils have quality technicians certified by the ANPC.

Fire safety in schools and nursing homes is also the responsibility of municipalities.

The secretary of state’s office has also advanced that municipal operational coordination centers will be set up, just as there are district and national centers.

The municipalities, firemen, GNR and PSP are part of the operational coordination center of each municipality. The captain’s commander, the hospital official and the president of forestry producers’ organizations may also participate, if they exist and are justified.

Directed by the municipal operations and relief coordinator, the municipal-level operational coordination center organizes and creates the preventive and operational response measures when there are yellow or higher special alert states.

Municipal civil protection services are now equipped with risk and vulnerability prevention and risk assessment, planning and support for operations, logistics and communications, and public awareness and information.

Municipalities with more than one fire brigade will also be able to create operating rooms and emergency management, which function as a “communications and dispatch room of fire brigade facilities”, as well as coordination center meeting space Operational.

Another of the competences to be transferred to the municipal councils and parish councils is the monitoring of the forests through the constitution of teams.

According to the office of Jorge Gomes, many municipalities already constitute teams of volunteers and municipal officials and parishes who, in the critical period of forest fires, use all-terrain vehicles with kits to carry out surveillance, detection and, if necessary, First intervention.

 

The installation and maintenance of the video surveillance systems that the Government wants to install in the forest areas will be the responsibility of municipalities and inter-municipal communities (CIM), although the users are ANPC and GNR.

According to the Government, there are ten video surveillance projects, led by the inter-municipal communities, which will be financed with community funds.

During the commemorations of the Civil Protection Day, which today was marked, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Constança Urbano de Sousa, said that the legislative proposals that allow the transfer of competences to the municipal councils and parish councils in the Protection.

It was reported that on 4^th March that agents of the Spanish National Police and the Civil Guard have carried out Operation “MISSOURI” in which a criminal organization has been dismantled conducting thefts at ATMs Banks by means of the gas explosion. The members of this group used disguises to avoid being identified and explosive and flammable material to access the money that was inside the ATMs. Six people, mostly South American, have been arrested in the operation.

Police found in three houses and a rented storage room, numerous false documents (passports, driving licenses and identity cards from different countries) acetylene cylinders, cable clamps, hoses, car batteries and metal rods, costumes and masks used in thefts, specialized tools, computers, telephones and cash. They used acetylene gas to blow up and steal ATMs.

The operation began after contacts between the two police forces which verified the existence of a criminal group that could be responsible for several robberies with force committed in ATMs of different Andalusian localities, in which they used explosives to access the money

Continuing with the investigations, agents of the Scientific Police identified a DNA profile, which placed the main suspect of a robbery committed at a bank in Jerez de la Frontera (Cadiz). During the incident four individuals (two of them armed with shotguns and another with a large knife), entered the bank and tied up an employee and stole cash from the safes.

The individuals also committed eight robberies with force at ATMs in different bank branches located in several localities of some Andalusian provinces.

The information was revealed after the arrest of three robbers in Portugal. The leader of the organization under investigation recomposed the group, bringing from Chile two people who are specialists in the theft of ATMs by means of the explosion with flammable gases.

Likewise, the agents found that the organization used rental vehicles obtained with falsified documents which were sometimes replaced by stolen license plates to commit various ATM robberies

Each of these robberies was carried out using explosive and flammable material, namely acetylene gas which were injected by rubber tubes into the tellers, and using rods connected to a car battery, as a detonator of the compartment. Once the ATM exploded, the criminals used axes, shears, chisels or screwdrivers to access even the money.

It is believed that the group were planning similar crimes in Bonares, Huelva, (about 60 kms from Portugal) where they had an infrastructure in place.

The National Civil Protection Authority will train 1,320 Army personnel to integrate the Special Firefighting Devices (DECIF) for surveillance functions, the Army said Thursday.

“This is a Specialization Course in Active Post-Post Surveillance to be held until next May 11, at the Castelo Branco Logistic Support Base. The course, certified by the General Directorate of Employment and Labor Relations and recognized by the National School of Firefighters, will provide the military with more skills to integrate the theatres of operations to combat forest fires in active surveillance after resolution, “said an army statement released today.

The possibility of the military being integrated into the firefighting device this year was advanced by the Minister of Internal Administration, Constança Urbano de Sousa, in an interview with the newspaper Expresso in February.

The Army’s statement also states that the collaboration of the military with Civil Protection already occurs, “when requested, in the fight against forest fires in actions of surveillance, aftermath and post-civilian surveillance, in the provision of infrastructures and equipment and in the Provision of logistical support in order to contribute to the safety of people and goods and safeguarding the natural heritage in national territory. ”

According to data presented in November by the National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC) and the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF), the area burned in 2016 almost tripled in relation to 2015, with a total of 152,251 hectares consumed by the fires.

The number of fires declined by 16% in 2016 compared to the previous year, with 13,137 incidents.

The area burned in 2016 is the highest in the last decade, but lower than in 2003 and 2005.

Fire events, however, have registered a downward trend.

Between 23 and 28 February, the Regional Police of the Public Security Police of Madeira registered 25 arrests most of them were driving under the influence of alcohol (19). One person was detained for drug trafficking, two for driving without a license; and two under an arrest warrant.

The figures are the result of Operation Always Present Police – Carnival in Security 2017 that the CR PSP Madeira developed in its area of ​​responsibility.

In the reference period, 1484 doses of hashish were seized.

In the scope of the inspection to establishments the PSP detected 10 infractions to the existing legislation.

On the road side, PSP checked 1165 vehicles, having detected 118 infractions, of which 39 were for illegal parking; 9 for mobile phone use while driving; 14 for lack of inspection and 12 for not wearing a seat belt. Some 20 vehicles were still detected for speeding.

In terms of road fatalities, the PSP registered a total of 49 accidents, resulting in 12 minor injuries and two serious injuries.

Spanish police announced on Saturday 4th March 2017 that they had dismantled a Colombian cocaine trafficking network in an operation that arrested 24 people and seized 2.4 tons of drugs.

The suspected drug traffickers, belonging to two groups linked to the “Cucuta cartel”, “were trying to settle in Spain,” the head of the Spanish police narcotics squad, Ricardo Toro, told a news conference in the city of A Coruña.

The seizure “is one of the most important” carried out in recent years in Spain on cocaine trafficking, he said.

“The majority” of those arrested are of Colombian nationality and the rest are Spanish, he said, adding that many are “very important figures in international cocaine trafficking.”

His job was to get the drug and distribute it in Spain and Europe through double-bottomed cars, his goal being to “establish a new route to Spain” for cocaine, according to a police statement.

Spain is the main drug entry point in Europe due to its proximity to North Africa, where cannabis is produced, and to its ties to South America, where cocaine comes from.

An ATM was broken into and money stolen, on 5th March in the Caldas da Rainha, informed source of the District Command of the PSP of Leiria.

The assault occurred around 5.30 am in a “cash machine located inside the dependence of the Agricultural Credit Bank” of Caldas da Rainha, said a PSP source from Leiria.

According to the same source, the Judiciary Police went to the site to investigate the situation. At present the number of people were involved in the robbery and whether the explosion was made using “gas or explosives,” is not known.

 

The Food and Economic Security Authority seized two elephant ivory tusks, for sale on the internet without a certificate, and identified four people who were going to make the transaction, a practice penalized with a fine between 10,000 and 100,000 euros.

The action was carried out by the National Information and Criminal Investigation Unit and allowed to identify “four individuals who wanted to transact the objects without the required mandatory CITES certificate”, and instituted backtracking proceedings, the Food and Economic Security Authority (ASAE) reported today.

This practice constitutes a very serious environmental counter-order, with a fine between 10 thousand and 100 thousand euros.

The seizure took place in the context of combating trafficking in protected species through CITES a convention on international trade in endangered wild species and led to the confiscation of two tusks or tusks of elephant ivory, one with 36.5 centimeters and about 1.5 kilograms and another one with 91 centimeters, explains the ASAE.

The search to find the 13-year-old teenager missing since Friday, from Ponte de Lima, was extended to the district of Aveiro, and the Judiciary Police of Braga was alerted, according to a GNR source.

According to a source from the Territorial Command of the GNR of Viana do Castelo, the district of Aveiro was identified through the request of cellular location made by that police force.

“Through the mobile phone of the minor, the request for cellular location has identified the district of Aveiro. We have informed the Territorial Command of Aveiro to try and more accurately pin point the area,” the source said.

The same source revealed that “there are reports”, still unconfirmed, that the child will have caught a bus bound for Braga.

The 13-year-old girl, who lives in the parish of Beiral do Lima, “took a school bus on Friday morning to go to class but did not show up at school.”

The authorities’ warning was given at around 8:00 pm by the parents of the minor, “who” cannot explain what happened. ”

The Territorial Command of the GNR of Viana do Castelo said that the military involved in the operation “continue to gather information from relatives and friends of the child”, who “has apparently taken this decision of her own free will.”

The data of the adolescent “are already included in the database of people given as missing”.

 

On 22^nd February a British tourist in his early 70s fell 15 meters at the Levada do Norte, between Camara de Lobos and Garachico.

The man who may have been part of an organised tour suffered a head injury. His condition is unknown.

There have been a number of accidents whilst walking the levadas. On some occasions people are walking alone.

Please see our advice to minimise the risk to you.

On 24th February 2017 a French tourist died while walking up the slight slope in the botanic gardens, he was said to be feeling unwell.

The man 47 years of age, suffered a cardiac arrest, emergency services arrived at the scene but, nothing could be done to save him.