Last modified: 2005-10-01 by antonio martins
Keywords: civil defense | protecção civil | municipal |
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![[Portuguese Civil Defense flag]](../images/p/pt_prciv.gif)
This winter in Portugal there have been lots of chances to spot on
TV the civil defense flag. It’s a simple white logo-on-white-background
type of flag, with the seal of the portuguese civil defense in the center:
an orange circle, bordered white contains a blue triangle, also bordered
white and is circled by a blue ring with a white and a narrow blue border
and containing the words
"PROTECÇÃO CIVIL / PORTUGAL" in white.
Jorge Candeias, 01 Mar 2001 and 02 Mar 2001
The symbol is more or less the same used by Civil
Defense institutions all around the world; it is one of the
Geneva Convention Protocol symbols.
António Martins, 07 Mar 2001
Information about the Portuguese Civil Defense system was further completed
by João Cardigos, ex-mayor of the portuguese smallest municipality
(Corvo, Azores): It consists of a number of local
offices, organized at municipal level, integrating the departments that
might be indispensable in an emergency and presided by the respective mayors.
These Local Councils, as they are called, get sort of federated at regional
level and then at national level.
Jorge Candeias, 08 Mar 2001
The flag above is in fact that of the National Council
of Civil Defense (Conselho Nacional de Protecção Civil) and there is
indeed a potential for over 300 slightly different Civil Defense flags in Portugal,
one for each municipality.
Jorge Candeias, 08 Mar 2001
However, I saw several times a flag with the seal reading
"PROTECÇÃO CIVIL / MUNICIPAL". So it seems that a number
of municipal offices use this generic flag instead of the specific one.
That makes things even more interesting for us flag-hunters: to determine
which ones get generic, which ones get local… and, since we're at it, why…
Jorge Candeias, 08 Mar 2001