Three more Lithuanian municipalities declare storm emergencies

Ignalina, Mažeikiai and Kupiškis districts have declared municipal-level emergencies after the weekend storm, LRT reported. Ignalina district made the declaration on Tuesday, while Mažeikiai and Kupiškis districts did so on Wednesday.

Kazlų Rūda, Anykščiai, Biržai and Telšiai districts had previously declared emergencies. A national-level emergency was also declared on Wednesday.

Kupiškis District Mayor Algirdas Raslanas said the municipal declaration allowed the municipality to use the mayor’s reserve fund to compensate residents for their losses. Without the declaration, those funds could not be used for that purpose.

“We are calculating the losses people suffered from damage. Sheds, barns and houses were hit, and there were cases where homes were badly damaged,” Raslanas told BNS.

About 800 people in Kupiškis district still have no electricity, down from almost 5,000 immediately after the storm. Raslanas said the prolonged outage had caused further losses, including spoiled food and problems storing milk.

He said the declaration had also prompted the Energy Distribution Operator to send additional crews to the district. Electricity repairs were expected to be completed on Thursday, although fallen wires remained in some places. Raslanas said only specially authorised ESO employees could handle them.

Raslanas said ESO had informed the municipality on Wednesday that it could request assistance from the Lithuanian Armed Forces. He said the municipality no longer needed military help because local services had largely dealt with the damage, but argued that such assistance should have been offered on Sunday morning.

He also said the storm had shown that civil protection funding should be allocated more effectively, with priority given to generators. Four generators were moved between different locations in Kupiškis district according to a schedule so residents would know when water services would be available.

According to BNS, one person was killed and four injured in the weekend storm. Electricity supplies were disrupted for more than 268,000 customers, and 62,000 customers were still without power on Thursday morning.