LEVIARA: Alcohol flowed freely in the Portuguese town of Levira after two vats holding about 2.2 million litres of wine at a local distillery burst and flooded the streets.
Images and videos posted online showed red wine – almost enough to fill an Olympic size swimming pool – gushing down the streets of Levira in Anadia, central Portugal.
“We deeply regret the incident that occurred this morning,” Destilaria Levira said in a post on its Facebook page. “We want to express our sincere concern for the damage caused in general.”
It said the causes of the rupture were being investigated and that it took full responsibility for the cleanup.
The wine flowed down nearby roads, flooding land and at least one cellar, local media reported. Local firefighters helped clean up and the liquid that could be collected was taken away to a wastewater treatment plant.
The streets of Levira, Portugal were flooded with red wine after a distillery’s 2.2 million liter tanks burst.
— Pop Base (@PopBase) September 11, 2023
The wine was prevented from pouring into a river, averting an environmental disaster, a member of the local council told the Jornal de Notícias.
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The spill lasted for about an hour but did not leave a strong smell behind because it was “good quality wine,” the distillery’s chief executive Pedro Carvalho said.
He said one tank collapsed because of a “structural failure” and the force of that torrent of wine knocked over the second vat.
The distillery said the vats had been used to store excess wine, Portugal, along with other wine-producing countries such as France have an oversupply due to a drop in consumption.
