Bus company Horários do Funchal has announced that it will increase its services between 16:00 and 19:00 hours on a daily basis, and reduce the number of journeys on any given route from 21:00 hours onwards.
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Due to the increasing number of deaths and positive covid-19 cases, the President of the Regional Government, Miguel Albuquerque has introduced a new set of restrictions. These will remain in place until the 31st of January. The new restrictions are:-
As curfew hour drew gradually closer, many ignored the weather and safety warnings and drove up into the mountains to see the snow, while Funchal became a ghost town. https://www.facebook.com/100009450955174/videos/2908935056098164/ Samantha Gannon info at madeira-weekly.com Photo and videos courtesy of JM-Madeira
Predictions made by the Portuguese Institute of Atmosphere and Sea (IPMA), indicate that the cold weather will continue into next week, with snow falling on the island's highest peaks until early Monday morning (11th of January).
Diario de Noticias has just released a video of police patrols around Funchal, as the first of two weekend curfews starts tonight.
Since early yesterday morning, large numbers of people have been travelling to the island's mountains to enjoy the snow, however, due to the conditions the Institute of Forests and Nature Conservation has closed several roads leading to the island's highest peaks. As such, in addition to the closure of the road that connects Poiso to Pico do Areeiro, access to Paul da Serra, Achada do Teixeira and Fonte do Bispo have been blocked for precautionary reasons.
This morning, local newspaper JM-Madeira printed a series of photographs depicting the damage caused by storm Filomena.
Due to the revised curfew over the next two weekends (9th and 10th and 16th and 17th), public transport company, Horários do Funchal has announced that they will be readjusting some of their bus timetables from 6 pm onwards.
This afternoon, the Regional Secretary for Equipment and Infrastructure, Pedro Fino, travelled to Machico, in order to personally see the damage caused by the storm, most of which is in the Ribeira Grande area.
In a press release, the President of Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque stated that during the next two weekends (9th - 10th and the 16th - 17th) the curfew will be brought forward from 11 pm to 6 pm. This means that no one, is allowed to be on a public road between 6 pm - 5am, unless any of the below exceptions apply.
British Airways has announced that it will be suspending all its flights to Madeira until at least February.
As the bad weather continues and is set to get worse the Civil Protection Service (SRPC, IP-RAM) has issued a set of guidelines.
Today, the 6th of January, the municipalities of Funchal, Santa Cruz, Câmara de Lobos and Porto Santo registered the highest number of positive Covid cases. During today's bulletin 37 new cases were registered in Funchal, 26 in Santa Cruz, 14 in Câmara de Lobos and 10 new infections in Porto Santo were confirmed.
With 110 new positive cases of Covid, (103 local transmissions), and the shenanigans of the Savoy Palace end of year party, tension is high, especially since Porto Moniz, a municipality who thought it was safe from the virus woke up to find that one person had infected nineteen people, either directly or indirectly, forced dozens to self-isolate, including public officials, all through a days work of face to face meetings.
Depression Filomena is expected to affect the Madeiran archipelago from this afternoon until Friday.