The Government is preparing new seismic safety rules for existing buildings, with the proposal to be presented at the end of September. The information was provided by the Secretary of State for Housing, Patrícia Gonçalves Costa, during a parliamentary hearing held on September 9. The Algarve is among the zones of highest vulnerability identified, together with the Litoral Alentejo, Lisbon and the Tagus Valley and the Azores. The legislation will take into account that seismic hazard is not the same across the entire territory.
The technical work is being developed with the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC) to create an integrated legal regime for the evaluation, classification and mitigation of the seismic vulnerability of the built heritage. The Executive also plans to adapt standards and adopt new solutions for monitoring and inspecting the seismic resistance of constructions.
During the same hearing, the Minister of Infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, announced the creation of a permanent mechanism to monitor the condition of structures such as bridges and slopes. LNEC carried out 53 inspections, 29 of artworks and 24 of slopes, in addition to the verifications already carried out by Infraestruturas de Portugal. Hugo Espírito Santo, Secretary of State for Infrastructure, argued that IP has an artwork monitoring system considered one of the best in Europe.
According to Miguel Pinto Luz, the ongoing measures represent an investment of more than 1,100 million euros and include the creation of a national emergency accommodation system, the use of intelligent submarine cables, the strengthening of communication network redundancy and energy resilience, as well as the revision of structural resistance standards for telecommunications infrastructure. The hearing took place in the Special Committee for National Resilience, Natural Disaster Prevention and Monitoring of the PTRR.
