Fireworks filled Funchal with light and color despite the threat of rain
It was a rainy day in Funchal, and the forecast was that it should continue through the night, but at last the weather subsided, and once again one of the world’s greatest firework displays took shape.
Thousands of people, residents and tourists, attended the event that marked the entry in 2019, where a new record of hit pieces – 174,000, compared to 132,000 last year – was hit by a total of 26 tons of fire, nine of which of explosives.
The night of Funchal was filled with light and color in a spectacle that lasted eight minutes and that mobilized a team of 350 people so as not to defraud the expectations of the thousands who waited for the arrival of the new year in several points of the bay and of the amphitheater of the Madeiran capital.
About 28,000 tourists traveled to the autonomous region for the year, which means a hotel occupancy rate of 89%, which does not include local accommodation.
Ten cruise ships were also anchored at midnight in the port and off Funchal, carrying a total of 25,000 passengers and 9,000 crew members, according to official figures.
The squares located on the marginal avenues of Funchal and all the viewpoints of the slopes, the hotel and house terraces and the roads with view were filled with people to watch the one who in 2006 entered the book “Guinness World Records” as “Major Pirotécnico do Mundo “, which is, on the other hand, one of Madeira’s main tourist posters.
The fire was fired from 38 posts – 31 in the city ‘s amphitheater, five at sea and two in Porto Santo – and represented an investment of 1.3 million euros from the Regional Government, and the spectacle was inserted in the commemorations of the 600 years of the discovery of the archipelago (1418 Porto Santo, 1419 Madeira).
In total, the executive invested 3.7 million euros in the Christmas and New Year celebrations, a 10% increase over last year.
