St Davids artist, Tony Kitchell, flees Madeira devastation (From Western Telegraph)

Mr Kitchell
Parts of this article are inaccurate.
I have lived and worked in Paul do Mar village for several years permanently and I met and spoke with your friend Charlie Sime whilst he was in Paul do Mar, Madeira.

There was NO chaos. And the whole of the island only lost power for about an hour. Only small isolated villages on top of mountains lost power for several days.

How can there be landslides and fallen trees everywhere on March 6th? Any debris on roads has been cleared by the authorities and volunteers who have worked day and night like dogs.

And I do not understand why you wrote you were

“in your home for three days” and

“you had to get out while you could.”

On Sunday morning 24 hours after the floods centred around the 4 rivers in Funchal and the river that runs down the Ribeira Brava valley we were speaking to friends and police officers in sunshine outside a café on the Ocean front in the village. I met tourists from Holland who were on a coach tour around the island and had stopped at Paul do Mar.

Nobody from this village was killed and no houses were damaged. A workman cleaning right next to a cliff after the floods was killed by debris falling. I do not believe that he lived in Paul do Mar. There was no order to evacuate the village. In fact, the authorities advised everyone to stay at home as there was a red weather alert for the whole region. There were police officers in the village on the Saturday the 20th and Sunday 21st happy to answer questions and give advice. International phones working on ‘the roaming system’ operated in some parts of the village.

We asked one police officer on the Sunday morning (the 21st) whether it was safe to drive out of Jardim do Mar and Paul do Mar up the road that was open via the village of Faja da Ovelha to the North Coast for sightseeing and surfing on the north coast and his response was he could not guarantee that the roads were passable so he advised NOT to travel unless it was necessary for example to go to the airport.

Anyone with an interest in Madeira will be happy to hear that Madeira after 2 weeks hard work is getting back to normal. The Madeiran Government issued this official report recently which states:

-"The hotel industry of Madeira was not affected by the storms of the past weekend, and maintains all operation conditions safely.
-Hotel establishments are operational with all its facilities.
-The Madeira International Airport was operational since the beginning as well as the Harbour of Funchal."

Link: http://www.madeirais
lands.travel/pls/mad
eira/wsmwdet0.detalh
e_conteudo?p_cot_id=
4792&p_lingua=en&p_s
ub=1

The Secretary General of the UN World Tourism Organization Taleb Rifai has commented on the situation in Madeira

"The quick response action undertaken by the competent authorities at local and national levels, together with the support of the EU, have been instrumental in this catastrophe.

"As for the tourism sector, according to the information provided by the regional government, the hotel industry of Madeira was not affected and maintains all operating conditions safely. Hotel establishments, in general, are operational and there were not reported any difficulties or problems. The Madeira International Airport is also operational.

"I am confident that Madeira will continue to count on its solid tourism infrastructure and services, which have made it the destination of excellence it is today."
Link: http://www.themovech
annel.com/news/ec230
236-162e/

Photographs of the most famous city streets cleaned 72 hours after the floods on the flickr site:
http://www.flickr.co
m/photos/apmadeirapt
/sets/72157623495306
502/

What a load of garbage,
i don't know about being an artist but he could certainly make a living writing "disaster films!"
Yes some mobile networks went down but NOT all ,Vodaphone stayed up.
If he stayed in for 3 days it would have been by choice.
the work done by emercency services & volunteers was amazing,the speed & effort put into recovering the situation was fantastic

I am appalled what some people will do to publicise their business. Tont and his lady were in their house in Jardine de Mar on the 12th March when we visited.
His comments do an injustice to the magnificent work done by the Madeirans since the 20th February disaster.
I suggest you read the Madeira blog to see the difference in approach to the quango bound UK.

Title of comment:
Please apologise for this article and take it down and comply with the PCC Code

The comment of grandcru36 at 10:59 Tue 23 Mar states that Mr Kitchell lives in Jardim do Mar village not Paul do Mar so unless he moved residence between the 12th and the weekend of the storm (20th February 2010) he does not live in Paul do Mar where he claims he works the one of the communities mentioned in the article!

This is one of many inaccuracies in the article.

Therefore the editor should 1) apologise for the publication and 2) take this article down. These 3 comments from 3 individuals is clear evidence that the article is in breach of the Press Complaints Commission Code section 1 at least and is an insult to all those who have an interest in Madeira and in particular, communities such as Paul do Mar village.

The inaccuracies include:

-the island did not lose all power and mobile phone reception for two days
-the pictures are inaccurate they were not taken in Paul do Mar, they were taken in the Ribeira Brava region 30 kilometres away
-one person from the village (Paul do Mar) was not killed in the floods