Territorial Unity Minister Ana Abruñosa stressed this Saturday that the victims of the Pedrogan Grande fires “will never be forgotten” and said the memorial has not yet been officially opened because a date could not be agreed upon.
“The government is negotiating with the Intermunicipal Community [CIM] of the region of Leiria and with the association of the victims is the right date for us to proceed with the opening of the memorial,” Ana Abruñosa said in statements to Luce about the work of the architect Eduardo Souto Moura, which opened on Thursday next to Estrada. Nacional 236-1, in the Pobrais area, Pedrógão Grande, with the names of 115 victims of the 2017 fires.
Although the memorial was open to the public, there was no groundbreaking ceremony. According to Ana Abruños, this happened because “the dates could not be agreed upon.”
“In the short term, when we have an agreed date, we will hold an inauguration ceremony to also honor the memory of the victims,” he said.
The minister, on behalf of the government, asks the country to focus on “the most important”: “We do not forget anyone.”
“The victims of the tragic summer of 2017 will never be forgotten. The memorial is proof of that. It is only symbolic, but important is all the work that we have done since 2017 to prevent and extinguish fires so that they are never seen. 2017 has been repeated,” he said.
Fires that broke out on 17 June 2017 in Pedrogan Grande and spread to neighboring municipalities left 66 people dead and 253 others injured, seven of them seriously. The fires destroyed about half a thousand houses and 50 businesses.
Most of the fatal victims were found on Estrada Nacional (EN) 236-1, which connects Castaneira de Pera and Figueiro dos Viños, next to which there is a memorial.
Ana Abruñosa recalled that “every year on this day, the government, by invitation, participates in ceremonies dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Pedrogane fires.”
“This year we did not know about any ceremony, we did not have an invitation, so there was not a single member of the government on site,” he explained.
Ana Abruñosa emphasized that the government “always went to the place when invited”, recalling that “there were no public ceremonies this year”, and expecting that this Saturday he called all the presidents of the local chambers and the president of the association Associação. de Vítimas do Incendio of Pedrógão Grande (AVIPG), “strongly hugging and expressing solidarity on this day, which marks the pain of many years and which will certainly never pass.”
The minister stressed that “the most important thing here is that the work has been done and the memory of the tragedy has been preserved, and the government is deeply committed to ensuring that something like the summer of 2017 does not happen again.”
“Let’s focus on the main thing: respect for the victims, respect for the families, and we wanted to re-emphasize that the victims are not forgotten and that we will be present as soon as we have a announced date,” he repeated.
In October 2017, just four months after the “Pedrogane tragedy”, other fires in the Central Region killed 49 people and injured about 70, while destroying or partially destroying about 1,500 homes and more than 500 businesses.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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