Leiria, Portugal, Feb. 18, 2026 (Lusa) - Around €75 million has already been requested for the restoration of homes damaged by the recent bad weather in Portugal, announced Paulo Fernandes, leader of the Central Region Reconstruction Task Force, on Wednesday.
"Today, we have 12,625 applications for home reonstruction assistance of up to €10,000, with a total of more than 30,000 registrations, 30,529 to be precise, which amounts to a total requested of around €75 million," Paulo Fernandes told journalists in Leiria.
Clarifying that the average amount per application is around €5,900, the leader noted that "70% of applications are in the context of the Central Region."
As for the technical capacity to assist in the analysis of applications, Paulo Fernandes mentioned the support of various professional associations (architects, engineers and technical engineers).
"We have managed to reach an agreement for 500 professionals, including architects, engineers and technical engineers, who are currently being contracted and registered by the intermunicipal communities, so that, according to a very simple rule, which is based on the proportion of damage, based on the sample we took of the applications, they could be distributed among the different communities and could immediately start looking at the 12,625 applications submitted as of this morning," he said.
The leader added that, in terms of support for loss of income, "3,062 applications have been registered so far," half of which have been processed.
On the other hand, using provisional data, he pointed out that there are 374 homeless persons (103 families) and 130 displaced persons (72 families), a "possible universe of 175 buildings, so far, that are uninhabitable".
In these cases, the leader reiterated the need to "find answers", given that these are houses whose reconstruction costs exceed €10,000.
Eighteen people have died in Portugal as a result of the Kristin, Leonardo and Marta storms, which also caused many hundreds of injuries and displaced people.
The total or partial destruction of homes, businesses and equipment, the fall of trees and structures, the closure of roads, schools and transport services, and the cutting of power, water and communications, floods and extreme rainfall are the main material consequences of the storms.
The Central, Lisbon and Tagus Valley and Alentejo regions were the most affected.
The state of emergency covering the 68 most affected districts ended on 15 February.
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