Eleven of Portugal's 18 districts were placed on yellow and orange alert, the third and second most serious weather warning levels on a scale from green (the lowest) to red (the highest).

According to statistics, the Algarve suffered the brunt of the downpours, closely followed by the Alentejo.

Streets throughout the country’s towns and cities were flooded, leaving traffic in chaos, roads cut off, and homes and shops destroyed.

In the countryside, rivers overflowed, bridges were seriously damaged, electricity poles were torn down by the gale-force winds, and entire herds of livestock were lost in the floods.

It is estimated that on a national level some 185 floods were reported to the emergency services (116 of which occurred in the district of Faro), along with 22 fallen trees and seven landslides.

Numerous families were left homeless, and in some cases the torrential rains left entire villages reduced to debris, and in one case, made into an island.

The Alqueva dam, Portugal’s largest artificial dam, located in the Eastern Algarve neat the Guadiana River, reached 71 per cent of its filling capacity after having risen more then three metres in just two weeks.