Pombal, Portugal, Feb. 6, 2026 (Lusa) - Residents of villages that have been without electricity for 10 days, following Storm Kristin, are mobilising for a demonstration tonight in Pombal to demand urgent solutions for the population, which is "desperate".
"We have been without electricity for 10 days, with very limited communications, there are still villages without water, and the population is beginning to get desperate. We see no solutions in sight, we see no one working on the ground," Tatiana Ferreira, one of the promoters of the initiative, told the Lusa news agency.
The demonstration, which is intended to be silent and peaceful, is scheduled for 8 p.m. today, next to the Pombal Town Hall, where the parish council presidents meet every day in the late afternoon.
Under the slogan "Villages without power for 10 days", the organisers are urging the population to mobilise so that "E-Redes respects those who pay them".
Tatiana Ferreira, the technical director of a nursing home, also said the aim is to show solidarity with the presidents of the parish councils in the municipality, urging them to join the initiative.
"Everyone is knocking on their door, but they are not the ones who have the solutions in their hands. E-Redes is the one with the solutions," she stressed.
Tatiana lives in Paço, a village that still has no electricity or internet and only "window communications", but she has to travel to the Almagreira Parish Council headquarters to access electricity and work.
"Perhaps the priority was the parish headquarters because of the elections, but we in the villages also need electricity," she pointed out, recalling that in 2018, after the passage of Storm Leslie, she had "electricity in three days" and asks: "Why has it now been 10 days and there are still villages without working generators to provide us with electricity?"
Tatiana Ferreira stressed that people are tired of being at home in the dark. "It's desperate," she said, noting that her colleagues had to shower at the home where they work and that they also ate there because they cannot cook in their homes.
The feeling, she described, is "one of physical fatigue and exhaustion due to the lack of answers."
"And we are even more overwhelmed when we hear news that, in principle, we may be without electricity until the 14th, and there are still many days to go until the 14th. For us, it's frightening. How are we going to continue living without electricity at home?" she asked.
A total of 89,000 E-Redes customers were still without electricity at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, following the passage of storms Kristin and Leonardo across the Portuguese mainland.
In a statement sent to Lusa, the company explained that, at the time, in the most critical areas, Storm Kristin caused damage affecting 75,000 customers.
According to the supplier, the worst-affected district is Leiria, with 54,000 customers without power, followed by Santarém (11,000), Castelo Branco (7,000), and Coimbra (3,000) still without electricity.
Twelve people have died in Portugal since last week as a result of the Kristin and Leonardo storms, which also caused many hundreds of injuries and displaced people.
The total or partial destruction of homes, businesses and equipment, fallen trees and structures, road closures, schools and transport services, and power, water and communications cuts are the main material consequences of the storm.
On Thursday, the government decided to extend the state of emergency for 68 municipalities until 15 February. In addition to the €2.5 billion support package it had already announced, it said that from today, 275 Citizen Service Centres and 12 mobile vans would be made available to support affected populations.
PLI/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
