Portuguese firefighters work to stop a forest fire from reaching the village of Figueiro dos Vinhos central Portugal, Sunday, June 18, 2017.
AFP | More than 1,000 firefighters on Monday continued to battle a giant forest fire that swept through central Portugal at the weekend, killing at least 62 people.
"Portugal weeps for Pedrogao Grande", said the i newspaper while mainstream Publico's headline simply read "Why?"
Pope Francis called for prayer on Sunday for the victims of wildfires which killed 62 people, including four children, in central Portugal this weekend.
The area is sparsely populated; it is full of small villages surrounded by forest, with little-used and little-maintained roads as the only connection.In many villages there was no firefighting response-the villages were too small, too remote for the local government to offer any support.
The death toll was cut from 62 to 61 after a counting error, "but we will certainly find other victims on the ground" in searches from village to village, said Costa.
Portuguese Interior Minister Urbano de Sousa said that Portugal's judicial police was expected to finish the identification of the bodies soon and would release the list of them as early as possible.
The fires broke out Saturday in Pedrogao Grande, some 150 km northeast of Lisbon, and quickly spread to the towns of Figueird dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera in the district of Leiria. "I never thought it would come to this side", she said.
Hundreds of people have been evacuated to camps set up by the army in Pedrogao Grande.
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"I am close to the dear people of Portugal, hit by a devastating fire which is raging in the forests around Pedrogao Grande, causing many victims and injuries", he said. France and Spain sent firefighting planes to help control the blaze.
[In the village of Mó Grande] 30 bodies were found inside cars, with another 17 next to the vehicles, on the N-236 road, which leads on to the IC8 motorway.
Public broadcaster RTP said there were about 20 injured, including six firefighters. Authorities say temperatures as high as 40C in the area in recent days might have also played a part in the inferno.
The regional prosecutor still ordered a criminal investigation into the causes, which he said would be shelved if the police version of events is confirmed.
"Some people stayed. Now we're waiting to see".
"This is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we can not remember a tragedy of these proportions", Valdemar Alves, mayor of Pedrogao Grande, told the Associated Press. The region has endured long months of drought and heatwaves - with temperatures sometimes reaching over 40 degrees Celsius in some areas.
Some victims were burned to death in their cars as they tried to flee, officials said.
"We have people here who are waiting for news of their loved ones, who want to know and are really anxious", said Soledade Lourenco, 51, a nurse volunteering at the centre.
In August, four people were killed in a blaze on the popular tourist island of Madeira.
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