A tornado is believed to have smashed into a hotel and campsite, leaving 21 injured and three of them in a serious condition. One person has been reported missing among the horror.
The municipality of Albufeira in Portugal was hit by an “extreme wind phenomenon,” probably a tornado, this Saturday morning. It has caused 21 injuries, three of them serious, and one missing person, a Civil Protection source said today.
A source from the Regional Emergency and Civil Protection Command told Sul Informação: “It was a phenomenon of strong winds, an extreme wind phenomenon, that affected two units, a campsite and a hotel unit.” He added at the Hotel Eden, there were “19 injured, one of them seriously,” and at the campsite, “two seriously injured and one missing”.
According to Civil Protection, the seriously injured victims were transported to Faro Hospital and those with minor injuries to the Albufeira Health Center.
Civil Protection said: “We continue to search for the missing person. A number of structures were affected. A number of caravans in the campsite, as well as the roof of the hotel unit, were also affected and caused damage.”
Around 62 personnel and 25 vehicles were mobilised from the fire department, GNR (National Republican Guard), INEM (National Institute of Medical Emergency), and the Red Cross, with support from the Municipal Civil Protection.
Civil Protection declined to confirm whether the horror that unfolded was a tornado. They said: “The IPMA [Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere] classifies these events; we don’t yet have that information. What we do know is that it was an extreme wind phenomenon.”
A tornado was also recorded in Ferragudo, in the municipality of Lagoa, on Saturday morning, according to Bruno Gonçalves of MeteoFontes. This phenomenon, which passed near the local campsite, caused many trees to fall and continued towards Lagoa.
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