Leiria, Portugal, Jan. 30, 2026 (Lusa) - The Portuguese minister of the economy and territorial cohesion, Castro Almeida, said on Friday that the damage caused by storm Kristin is “significantly greater” than the losses recorded in the wildfires of 2024 or 2025.
“I was doing my calculations, of course, as I listened to the description of what was being done, and I am coming up with a figure in my head, but these are very rough estimates. What I can tell you is that the figures are very high compared to the losses caused by the fires in 2025 or 2024," Castro Almeida told journalists.
The minister was speaking to journalists after a meeting at the Leiria Fire Station with local authorities and other entities, following the impact of the Kristin depression.
"From today's meeting, I was unable to provide a figure for the amount of damage. The overwhelming majority of local authorities are understandably reluctant to give a figure for the amount of damage in each district. Therefore, it is impossible to arrive at an overall figure," he said.
Adding that the meeting with local authorities allowed him to "understand that the scale of the problem is really very large", the minister acknowledged that the north and south of the country "have no idea what is happening in the centre region", especially in the Leiria region, where several districts are experiencing "very serious" problems.
Castro Almeida acknowledged that, due to the fact that "many factories" have no roofs and "unable to work", the situation "will affect production chains", which "will be a serious problem".
On the other hand, he said that the impact of the depression will force a change in priorities in terms of council investment.
"One of the things we have been seeing is that there are projects being built with funding from the PRR [Recovery and Resilience Plan], which have strict deadlines to be met, and this will make it difficult to meet those deadlines," he acknowledged.
Saying that he had asked local authorities to bring these situations to the attention of the government, so that the government could "obtain Brussels' understanding for these deadlines, which are very strict", Castro Almeida noted: "If a school is being built and the crane collapses and the roofs collapse and what was built collapses, we will necessarily have to change these deadlines."
The passage of the Kristin depression through mainland Portugal in the early hours of Wednesday morning left a trail of destruction, causing at least five deaths, according to Civil Protection, and several injuries and displaced persons. The Marinha Grande local council also reports another fatality in the district.
Fallen trees and structures, road and transport service disruptions, particularly railway lines, school closures, and power, water, and communication outages are the main material consequences of the storm.
Leiria, where the storm entered the country, Coimbra and Santarém are the regions that have suffered the most damage.
The government declared a state of emergency between midnight on Wednesday and 11:59 p.m. on 1 February for around 60 areas, a number that may increase.
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