In the Brazilian tourist town of Petropolis the streets have been turned into rivers of mud. And the balance sheet is likely to increase further, the number of missing in the locality located 60 km north of Rio, in the south-east of Brazil, not having yet been established.
The city of Petropolis received in a few hours Tuesday evening more rain than the average for a whole month of February. The worst rains in nearly a century that led to landslides and flooding. Rescuers are still hard at work trying to find survivors.
The balance sheet, which is provisional, has continued to increase hour by hour the day after torrential rains which transformed the streets of the center into rivers of mud, flattened houses and overturned dozens of cars.
” We now have 78 confirmed dead and 21 people have been saved. Rio de Janeiro state governor Claudio Castro said at a press conference, referring to “ the worst rains since 1932 “.
Brazil has been hit this rainy season by particularly severe rainfall – in the states of Bahia (northeast), Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo (southeast) – which experts have linked to global warming.
With global warming, the risk of heavy rainfall events increases, according to scientists. These rains, associated in particular in Brazil with an often wild urbanization, favor floods and deadly landslides.
state of calamity
More than 180 firefighters were in Petropolis, along with some 400 military personnel, scouring the muddy earth in this mountain town that was the summer residence of the former imperial court fleeing Rio’s heatwave in the 19th century. The most affected neighborhood is Alto da Serra, a hill that many families descended on Wednesday crying, carrying the meager belongings they were able to save, AFP journalists noted.
The Church of Saint-Antoine, near the most affected area, opened its doors to some 150 residents who abandoned houses already destroyed or threatened with collapse. The town hall of Petropolis decreed a “state of calamity” and a three-day mourning was decreed.
(With AFP)