Leiria, Portugal, Feb. 20, 2026 (Lusa) - Silvino, 80, sighs after the sun sets and the house is plunged into darkness in Leiria. Another long, sleepless, dark night lies ahead. It has been like this for more than three weeks, and the loneliness is becoming increasingly oppressive.

With his white moustache and glasses sliding down his nose, Silvino Ferreira dos Santos stares fixedly at the stove, where the burning embers warm his bare feet. In the distance, he can hear dogs barking and cars passing by on a road in Chãs, in the parish of Regueira de Pontes, where he lives in a house hidden from the rest of the street.

Most of the houses in the area have lights on, the streetlights are back on, and life seems to be returning to normal after the Kristin storm blew away roof tiles, destroyed company roofs, disrupted daily life, and destroyed an electrical network that, more than three weeks later, has still not been completely restored.

Silvino is one of more than 6,000 E-Redes customers who are still without power. While some have found temporary solutions such as generators to keep essential appliances running or power from neighbours' and relatives' homes, this 80-year-old man, who used to be a road worker for the Leiria City Council, has only the light from the stove in his living room and two white candles to light his home, which is otherwise plunged into darkness.

"This is sad," says Silvino, who tries to hold back tears as he speaks to the Lusa news agency.

If at first he thought the situation would be resolved in a couple of days, today his frustration is mounting as he hears that neighbours, family and friends have light, while his house remains in darkness.

"Now it's getting to me. Since the beginning of this week, it's been getting harder and harder to be like this - every night when I go to bed, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts," he says.

During the day, he tries to entertain himself by tending to his vegetable garden, having coffee with friends and chatting a little. At home, in order to shave, he moves a mirror into the living room to use the daylight; to take a shower, he has to take a candle into the bathroom; and he takes advantage of the sunset to eat something that doesn't need to be stored in the fridge, which is empty.

By 9 p.m., he is already in bed, and it is at night that everything is most difficult.

"What am I doing here? I'm by candlelight. I don't have a television, I don't have anything. I spend a little time here and then I go to bed."

The nights are long and sleepless, because "once you're in bed, you think and think and think, and sometimes you think about things you shouldn't think about."

Right now, Silvino says he feels "anger, anguish, frustration, sadness, everything, it all comes together now."

"And being alone hurts more. I feel the loneliness more, which I already had, but now it's much more intense," says the man, who has been a widower for three years and who, these days, sees the lack of light as a form of imprisonment that is taking shape: "I feel trapped."

Silvino has sought help from the Regueira de Pontes Parish Council. On Thursday morning, he went there to find out when the power might come back on, but "they're tireless, poor things, but they can't solve it either."

"We think that tomorrow the power will come back on, that tomorrow is a new day, that we have to take it one day at a time. It's the only way."

Silvino misses the sound of the television, watching Preço Certo on RTP, feeling less alone. These days, he also turns to his faith to keep going, "because there is always a God to guide us."

His children still help him at the weekends, but he insists on staying at home.

"Our little house, our little fire," says the man who has lived in that house for 55 years.

Even if the power comes back on, Silvino says that these three weeks will leave a scar.

"We can't give up. We have to be strong. But there are moments when we really break down."

JGA/ADB // ADB.

Lusa