A fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon in a nursing home in Darque, in Viana do Castelo, without causing injuries among the 75 elderly people affected. The fire started in a maintenance work that was taking place on the laundry pipe, having been declared extinguished at 4:49 PM, after having started at 4:16 PM. Approximately six rooms were rendered unusable both in the Residential Facility for Elderly People and in the Continuing Care unit, and the dining hall was also affected by the water used by the firefighters in fighting the flames.
The elderly people, 33 from the nursing home and 42 from the continuing care unit, were transferred to a nearby daycare center, where they spent the night. According to the city council councilor Fabíola Oliveira, by 8:10 PM everyone was already accommodated in the daycare center. During the night, staff and volunteers removed the water and began the cleaning work, allowing the elderly to return to the institution during the following day.
The director of the Centro Paroquial de Promoção Social e Cultural de Darque, Father Xavier Moreira, highlighted that the institution has sufficient spaces to accommodate the elderly without the need to send them to other institutions. The priest, who had returned from vacation to the municipality, praised the staff's readiness in applying the lessons from a drill previously carried out and the firefighters' rapid intervention. The children from the daycare center were redistributed, some stayed home and others were sent to rooms made available by the Carteado Mena school.
