The fall of the roof of the main stage of the Whaling Week, the largest celebration in the municipality of Lajes do Pico in the Azores, in which three people were injured, was due to an “unusual atmospheric phenomenon,” the mayor said this Monday.
The mayor of Lajes do Pico, Ana Broome, told the agency that Sunday’s weather forecast did not predict what happened that day, noting that an “extraordinary atmospheric phenomenon, very localized” had occurred.
“It was a sporadic event and it was not foreseen. (…) Our municipal inspector observed all procedures of the stage. (…) It was a phenomenon that was not expected, including, there was another stage in which we are little by little with the philharmonic game [e] We have canceled the second Philharmonic concert. And so in this kind of weather, we would never go on the main stage,” he said.
According to the press service of the Azores Regional Civil Protection and Fire Protection Service, the three injured were first taken by ambulance to the Lajes do Pico medical center and then sent to the da Horta hospital on the neighboring island of Faial.
According to eyewitnesses, the structure collapsed due to strong winds that were felt on Sunday, the last day of the festivities in honor of the lady de Lourdes, the patroness of whalers.
Witnesses added that the tragedy was not even more serious because the accident occurred minutes before about fifty musicians from the brass band of the municipality of Lajes, who were going to perform with Mimo’s Dixie Band, took the stage.
“What happened happened to one of the sound engineers and [dois elementos] from the Mimos team, who were going to play with our orchestra, went on stage to look at things and when they heard a noise, when the upper structure twisted, they jumped. The fact is that they jumped to the ground, because the stage is high, one of them had a sprain in his foot, and the other had a fracture,” explained Ana Brum.
The mayor escorted the three wounded to the Health Center, where they were x-rayed “to rule out any problems”, but because one of them had a fracture, they had to go to the Horta hospital.
“The affected lungs, one of them is just to analyze the situation, the second with a sprain, the third with a fracture,” he added, adding that “they are all at home.”
Roberto Silva, former mayor of Lajes do Pico and father of a young man who was preparing to perform in the municipal orchestra, accuses the executive of “ignoring” warnings about the location of the main party scene, which, in his opinion, is not true . was too exposed to the prevailing winds.
“Consecutive warnings, as early as 2022, that the new site of Whaling Week’s main stage was at serious risk of collapse due to the effects of the winds were completely disregarded and ignored,” lamented the socialist former mayor, recalling that last year “ the stage was blown away by the wind, endangering the lives of the performers and hundreds of spectators.”
The current mayor assured Lusa that the security procedures required for an event of this nature were followed.
“As for other weeks of whaling in the past, we have had unusual security features,” Ana Brum assured.
The stage was given to the company, and “in the blink of an eye, neither the civil protection coordinator nor the inspector [camarário] neither the company,” they thought “there might be a problem” with the structure, he concluded.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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