A 200-year-old tree crashed to the ground in Portugal on Tuesday, killing 13 people and injuring 49 others who had gathered near the towering oak for a religious celebration.
At least six of the wounded were seriously hurt when the tree fell near the city of Funchal, according to government officials. There were at least four foreigners of various European nationalities among the injured, the officials said; at least one of the deceased victims was a child.
Local authorities said it was not clear what had caused the tree to collapse.
“The tree was never earmarked as being in danger of falling,” Mayor Paulo Cafôfo of Funchal told reporters at a news conference.
The oak tree toppled around noon local time, striking people who had gathered for the religious festival on the Roman Catholic Feast of the Assumption.
A grainy video recording of the accident posted online appears to show the tree thudding on the ground as hymnal music plays in the background. Many people initially run screaming from the scene, but some eventually regroup around the area where the tree fell.
One photograph from the scene showed people gathered around a person lying flat on the ground. Other images showed emergency personnel taking a victim away on a stretcher and shrouding someone or something with white linens.
Continue reading the main story“There was a big panic,” a witness, Domingos Perestrelo, told a local television station, according to a report by the Agence France-Presse news agency. “It happened in the middle of mass, around a half-hour before the start of the procession. There were a lot of people there.”
“It was terrible,” another witness, Xavier Nunes, told the television station, according to Reuters. “It was so sudden.”
Prime Minister António Costa of Portugal expressed his “condolences for the victims” and their families in a message on Twitter and promised to help local government officials with recovery efforts.
Expresso as minhas condolências pelas vítimas do acidente na #Madeira. Os meus sentimentos aos familiares e amigos das vítimas. #Funchal
— António Costa (@antoniocostapm) Aug. 15, 2017
In a statement on his website, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa of Portugal said he would travel to Funchal, the capital of the country’s Madeira islands, to learn more about what had happened and offer “a word of encouragement and comfort” to those who lost loved ones.
Miguel Albuquerque, a regional government official, declared that there would be three days of mourning for the victims, according to The Associated Press.
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