Portugal manages to control the fires while they began to demand political responsibilities

OyaYansa · October 17, 2017

Portugal has managed this Wednesday to control the wave of fires that has devastated the center and north of the country during the first day of official mourning for the dozens of fatalities, in which the Portuguese have begun to ask the government for responsibility for forest tragedies which have left more than a hundred fatalities this year.

The latest official Civil Protection report indicates that the more than 500 fires unleashed on Sunday caused 41 deaths and 71 injuries, of which 16 are serious. These figures add to the 64 dead and more than 250 injured that left the tragedy of Pedrógão Grande in June and that has already conomcionó to the country.

The fall in temperatures and the arrival of precipitation have helped the bodies responsible for the extinction to finish controlling the last fires early in the morning, the first of three days of official mourning decreed by what happened.

Motion of censure against the Government
Having controlled the situation on the ground, political voices and civil society demand responsibility to the government of the socialist António Costa that, following this tragedy, will have to face the first motion of censorship since it came to power.

This was announced Wednesday by the Christian Democratic Party CDS-PP, the fourth political force of Portugal and the formation to the right of the national parliament.

"We decided to file a motion of censure to the Government for a serious decision to fulfill the most basic function of the State: to protect the people," explained its leader, Assunção Cristas, who has criticized that the Government has not learned from it which occurred four months ago in Pedrógão Grande.

The prime minister, who has visited one of the most affected localities, has told the press about the proposal that all parties have that right, which "is part of the normality of our institutions."