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Updated at 8.36pm
TWELVE PEOPLE WERE crushed to death and around 50 were injured when a 200-year-old oak tree fell on them at a religious festival on the Portuguese island of Madeira.
Seven of those hurt were seriously injured, regional health chief Pedro Ramos told a press conference. The injured include a French citizen, a German and a Hungarian.
The tragic incident occurred around noon when the massive tree toppled into a crowd gathered near the island’s capital of Funchal to mark the Lady of the Mount festival in honour of Madeira’s patron saint, Mary.
Amateur video posted online showed the tree smashing down, prompting panicked worshippers to flee.
Catholics around the world mark Assumption Day on 15 August, which according to Christian tradition marks the Virgin Mary’s ascent into heaven.
The festival in Madeira draws large crowds every year from the island and beyond, and worshippers had gathered to light candles in a botanical garden around five kilometres from central Funchal.
‘Panic’
“We heard a cracking sound and then the tree fell where people were lighting candles. People sitting on the benches near the fountain were also hit,” witness Domingos Perestrelo told the SIC Noticias TV station.
There was a big panic – it happened in the middle of mass, around a half-hour before the start of the procession. There were a lot of people there.
The fountain is surrounded by several tall trees aged a hundred years or more.
A security perimeter was set up around the scene, where worried worshippers were gathered waiting anxiously for news and offering help to rescue teams.
Miguel Albuquerque, president of the regional government, announced three days of mourning.
Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa offered his condolences to families and friends of the victims, while President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was due to arrive at the scene in the coming hours.
Local football team Maritimo Funchal expressed its “profound sadness at the tragedy in Monte”.
Madeira, a popular tourist destination thanks to its dramatic coastlines and gentle climate, is the largest of several Portuguese islands in the north Atlantic Ocean.
Located in a volcanic archipelago off the coast of Morocco, it is prone to floods as well as landslides – which in February 2010 left more than 50 people dead, with Funchal badly hit.
Last year the Lady of the Mount festival was cancelled due to a forest fire.
Madeira has a population of more than 250,000, the vast majority of them Catholic.
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Pretty sickening all the comments making light of this. Cop on lads and have some respect. You’ll feel super if it turns out a few kids or a pregnant woman was crushed by this tree won’t you? Unbelievable
@Tony Daly: You’re a dicķ
@Tony Daly: if God is not available, send them to Jesus c/o the Pentagon.
@Barra O Brien: chuckling. That will get a quick response.
Note how Tony Daly’s mask of being a liberal progressive slips when the victims are Christian.
@Tony Daly: wow Tony exposing himself as a bigot!
@Chris M.: can’t see past his own bile and prejudices – just the protesters last weekend. He has more in common with his foes than he thinks
@Beachmaster:
He’s a keyboard Jihadist more like, one of Clonskeaghs Rug Rats.
@James Doyle: Wow… well two kids are confirmed dead. All their parents fault yeah? Just say what you’re alluding to, “they deserved it”.
@Liam flag: Yes the parents were indoctrinated, but that does not mean that their children in this age of enlightenment should be until they can make up their own minds on Religion. And no none of the congregation there deserved to die, be it at a Religious service, a football match,or any event where large crowds gather, but do you not think it is ironic that people should be killed praying to what they consider their Saviour who they are led to believe loves them and then allows a tree to fall on them, killing so many innocents. Some operator that God funny way to showw he loves you.
@James Doyle: I’d say it’s more unfortunate and tragic, than ironic. Maybe I’m just a more compassionate person than you James.
@Liam flag: Since taste and timing clearly don’t matter any more, judging from mostof the other comments, I’m going to ask. What difference would it make who the victims of a falling tree are? Is a pregnant woman more tragic than a spotty 14 year old with an iPod? I think we need to understand the hierarchy of tragedy here.
@Tony Daly: is that you Tariq or liam Egan..
@Ben McArthur: Well Tony and his ilk seemed unmoved at the idea of people dying, I wanted to know if they would be equally unmoved if some kids died. Apparently not.
@Liam flag: * apparently so
@Ben Moylan: TG somebody else suspects this trolkx to be Liam or one of his buddies from Clonskeagh. There he was all hypocritically righteous yday about the unfortunate death of some Antfa/BLM womem in the US and here he is making jokes at the death of innocent people in Funchal. He is just a sick deviant ass whole. Should be banned orveven better ignored.
@Liam flag: I would consider you a very compassionate and a good person, but you may have your head in the sand in relation to the God squads. If you believe in a man in the Cosmos directing operations here on this little ball we call Earth travelling at 66,000 miles an hour around the sun i have no problem with that. Me i need proof and Physics ,Geology, and Evolution prove to me that all religions are scams best avoided in my opinion as they have done more harm than good down through the ages.
@Tony Daly: at least people can c u for what u really are now
@James Doyle: I am an atheist… that has nothing to do with this though does it?
@Liam flag: sure Tonys friends are going around Europe murdering all around them, what does he care the tosser.
Good to see that they’ve deleted some of the disgusting comments made by Tony Daly. It’s about time they did something about that troll if you ask me.
@Tony Daly: As Hitchens might say, I think it’s a pity there isn’t a hell for you to go to.
@Tony Daly: it’s what he does best.
@Tony Daly: I guarantee it
@Liam flag: A pretty great Hitchens quote and one he kept in reserve for the vilest of creatures. I think he’d be disgusted to see some people here mocking such a loss of human life allegedly in the name of criticising religion.
I’m a raging atheist but there’s absolutely no need to be such a çunt about loss of human life while the bodies are still warm.
@Malachi: Some of the bodies were still alive at that point. Tony is a grade A dicķ
35 people dead, very sad occurrence.
RIP.
God rest their souls.
@Emmet Dillane: not to in any way make light of the tragic deaths of these people, but surely an omniscient, omnipotent god would easily have been able to prevent this happening? Even let the tree fall, but just not on to the people?
@Pseud O’Nym:
Apologies, I would like to enlighten you on this theological/scientific question but I haven’t that much time.
@Pseud O’Nym: Show some respect. The key point is that innocent people have died. If you want to have a debate about the existence of God, peddle your atheist propaganda elsewhere at another time. Honestly, atheists seem to be the most obnoxious of all pushers of faith.
@Emmet Dillane: In other words Emmet you would talk BS.
@Paraic McDonagh: says the religious apologist.
@Paraic McDonagh: I don’t think my comment was disrespectful, certainly wasn’t intended as such. It was a genuine question – one of the big conundrums of religious faith is why bad stuff happens to good people. I can’t see how gently challenging the motivations of a given deity is necessarily ‘peddling atheist propaganda’, but you’re entitled to your opinion.
@Pseud O’Nym: The one tenant I carried with me from my catholic education was the concept of “free will” bestowed on humans by God. Free will to choose to do good or bad. Humans made bad choices in regards to the monitoring of this tragic tree.
@Pseud O’Nym: come back when you have the balls to put your real name behind your comments.
@Pseud O’Nym: Some of the great people who came to understand suffering were hardly what people would think of as religious whether they suffered directly of considered it personally. Strictly speaking a religious personality passes through difficult events and discovers sorrow is just as inspirational as joy so long as they find it in external things. Edgar Allan Poe would be considered an atheist but his conception of God was not that of the cartoon atheists -
” No thinking being lives who, at some luminous point of his life of thought, has not felt himself lost amid the surges of futile efforts at understanding, or believing, that anything exists greater than his own soul. The utter impossibility of any one’s soul feeling itself inferior to another; the intense, overwhelming dissatisfaction and rebellion at the thought; — these, with the omniprevalent aspirations at perfection, are but the spiritual, coincident with the material, struggles towards the original Unity — are, to my mind at least, a species of proof far surpassing what Man terms demonstration, that no one soul is inferior to another — that nothing is, or can be, superior to any one soul — that each soul is, in part, its own God — its own Creator: — in a word, that God — the material and spiritual God — now exists solely in the diffused Matter and Spirit of the Universe; and that the regathering of this diffused Matter and Spirit will be but the re-constitution of the purely Spiritual and Individual God.
In this view, and in this view alone, we comprehend the riddles of Divine Injustice — of Inexorable Fate. In this view alone the existence of Evil becomes intelligible; but in this view it becomes more — it becomes endurable” Edgar Allan Poe
@lez ferguson: Determined to prove my point about atheists eh Lez?
@KerryBlueMike: getting sick.
@Paraic McDonagh: turn the other cheek then.
@Paraic McDonagh: point is well proven by you do called godly people.
I’ve run out of blasphemy.
A very sad tragedy. The only upside of religion is that it may give the families, friends and survivors some consolation.
@Tony Daly: we appear to have been censored, the journal fear his wrath.
@Barra O Brien: i fear both the Journal and the wrath of God in that order.
Blasphemy is against guidelines.
@Tony Daly: count yourself lucky that the journal shares your wicked ideology as similar comments directed toward Muslims would not only see your comment deleted but your account permanently banned.
@Tony Daly: I was perplexed at your earlier posts Tony, due to their crass insensitivity at this terrible tragedy but I respect you for this compassionate comment.
@Tony Daly: you are as bad as the racists that you denounced yesterday.
Discriminating against someone because of their religion is no different then discriminating against someone because of their race.
Hypocrite.
@Theunpopularpopulist: and bigot but this has been called out many times.
Terrible tragedy – it’s chilling to think how such a random event can take lives like that. We should all appreciate being alive and make the most of our time.
It’s pretty hypocritical that many of the regular so called left liberal commentators on this site who denounced Donald trump for his bigotry are now posting on this story essentially laughing at people who’ve tragically died.
Discriminating against someone because of their beliefs makes you just as ignorant as those who discriminate on skin colour.
Well between atheos Euripides comments last nite and tony Daly tonight their hypocrisy has really shone through,
Terrible tragedy for the victims & their families. My heart goes out to them. It does amaze me though how so many religious people believe there is an interventionist deity who looks after them. However, when horrific random tragedies occur they tell themselves it was “god’s will.” That’s a capricious kind of god with Tony Soprano style mood swings who one minute has your best interests at heart and the next minute is crushing you to death in a collapsed building.
@AR Devine: Well you have to bring in human free will….and that the world we live in is fallen….In this case it was natural occurrence tree falling….Can’t blame God
@AR Devine: You can be religious and still expect to die. Who says that religious people expect God to intervene and prevent their death? Do you think that religious people suppose that they’re immune to car accidents heart disease or cancer? Just one of many straw man arguments manufactured by atheists.
@AR Devine: yeah but that’s their belief. Not mine and not yours. So get off the high horse that you’re better informed than them. It’s a tragedy at a religious event. Not a religious tragedy.
@John003: im not blaming God because I dont have a belief in an interventionist deity or a non interventionist deity.
@Paraic McDonagh: yes, it was a tragedy but the serious question this raises is the treatment of victims, families and others who will doubt their faith after something such as this. It will be impossible to question religion for thousands of people in medeira for generations to come for fear of looking unpious. Rationally, the organisers should be held accountable for allowing large crowds to gather near an obviously unstable tree.
@AR Devine: so you choose a time to attack people who’s beliefs have absolutely no effect on your life.
You are some ignorant man.
People can believe in whatever they want. It’s none of your business.
A tragedy occurred and people died. You decide to push your agenda and insult them at this moment. Wow.
@Paraic McDonagh: My point was that most religious people have a form of cognitive dissonance where they believe they and their loved ones are being cared for but if tragedy strikes then it was “God’s will.” I said nothing about religious people expecting to live for other. If you think there’s a God who cares for you then surely he would let you live out a comfortable existence in to old age as opposed to it being his will that a tree crushes you to death in the prime of your life.
@Theunpopularpopulist: I didn’t insult anyone. I expressed compassion & then critiqued the religious mindset on a forum set up to exchange ideas and opinions. If I was speaking to anyone involved in the tragedy I would have the etiquette to refrain from criticising religious belief as it wouldn’t be the time or right context. Relax. No one is being attacked you cant attack people with online comments. Besides, I dont think the victims families will be checking the comments section on an Irish news website. Yes people can believe what they want and in a free society I have a right to question beliefs as others have a right to question & criticise me. By your own logic what I believe or say is none of your business but I would never say that because I believe in the free exchange of ideas.
Wow what a tragedy. Eleven people dead! They must be huge trees. Hopefully this means they didn’t suffer. RIP.
@Deborah Behan: As you are a liberal person with left wing views I admire your compassionate comment.
I was an old Oak tree not a little pine tree you see in the woods in Ireland.
It says there are 13 comments (16.41). I see seven – where are the others?
@Niall O Neill: Ah, deleted ! Must have been comments on an act of God. To whom people will now prayer to succour the injured and bereaved….
@Niall O Neill: eith some jusyification I admit, Liam and I had some light hearted comments banned.
@Tony Daly: Nope just you, you shitehawk
@Liam flag: I Think That Tony Daly Is Tariq And Liam Egan Just Under Another Name
@Niall O Neill: acording to some report the tree was attached to another one with a steel cable which would indicate there was some concern as to its stability, maybe not an act of God so much…
@Ben Moylan:
Without a doubt, along with his other troll accounts, Peedur Dante and Francis McCarthy.
@Tony Daly: that’s bad form. Totally undermines the stance you take on other matters.
I can’t but think of the irony to this sad story.
@lez ferguson: you’re a bit late lez, the really sick point scorers have had their say above. Tree falls, kills people, that’s sad, regardless of what they believe. The worst of the contributors embarrass decent atheists everywhere. What’s next? A call for burnings at the stake for non athiests, just to be a little more ironic maybe?
If a Satanic cult had gathered under same tree then many would say that god struck them down ……..
The special branch are looking into it
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