Two recent major landslides in the port of Santa Iria have startled the population of the parish of Ribeirinha, in the municipality of Ribeira Grande. For nearly two decades, they have been demanding and waiting for a major intervention in the embankments to improve the safety of people and goods.
Since 2004, the Ribeirinha Parish Council has been alerting successive regional governments of the Azores to the need to intervene in the area. In addition to the ongoing deterioration due to sea erosion, the slopes have become unstable and recently given way to the elements.
The current president of the Ribeirinha Parish Council, Marco Furtado, a staunch supporter of the site’s rehabilitation, has not kept quiet about his anger at recent events.
“We’re talking about two major landslides and part of the road has collapsed. There’s nothing we haven’t alerted the competent authorities to in due course and on several occasions,” he said, aware that ‘everything the Ribeirinha Parish Council could have done has been done over almost twenty years’.
Marco Furtado, his voice choked with sadness at what had happened and his love for the parish, regretted that the port of Santa Iria had reached this point, but expressed the hope that this would be an “eye-opener for those in authority so that the work can begin as soon as possible”.
The mayor vented his frustration that “it’s already starting to get violent for the people who are fighting to safeguard the port of Santa Iria to see that nothing has been done”, and confided that he was “tired of the accumulation of warnings over the years, with no tangible results in sight”.
The mayor recalled that there is “a long bureaucratic road ahead” after the work has been awarded to the company that won the public tender, calling for “speedy procedures so that the port of Santa Iria can be saved.”

In Diário da Lagoa, Clife Botelho-director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso Financial for sponsoring NOVIDADES.