Portugal’s interior minister, who has been criticised over the handling of the deadly storms that battered the Iberian nation in the past weeks, has resigned, the presidency said on Tuesday.
Maria Lucia Amaral “felt that she did not have the personal and political conditions necessary to carry out her duties”, a presidency statement late on Tuesday said.
Her position will be temporarily filled by centre-right Prime Minister Luis Montenegro.
Montenegro’s government has come under fire for its response to the two weeks of storms and fierce gales that have killed at least seven people and wrought an estimated four billion euros ($4.7 billion) in damage.
“The resignation of the interior minister is proof that the government has failed in its response to this emergency,” Jose Luis Carneiro, Secretary-General of the opposition Socialist Party, told the Portuguese press immediately after the announcement.
The Iberian Peninsula has seen increasingly drawn-out and intense bouts of extreme weather, such as downpours and heatwaves, which scientists have long linked to humanity’s burning of fossil fuels.
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