Truck smashes into Rio revellers
Carnival suffers dark day as over 20 hit by out-of-control vehicle.
rIo dE JANEIro: A huge float carried by an out-of-control truck struck at least 20 people celebrating carnival in Rio de Janeiro, causing serious injuries at the start of an allnight dance-off.
The truck was at the tail end of the Paraiso do Tuiuti samba school parade in the city’s Sambadrome when the accident occurred during heavy drizzle on Sunday.
It drove too close to a fence at the entrance to the competition piste, leaving several people unable to escape.
Three people were seriously injured, including a woman news photographer who had a leg badly crushed.
The truck was topped with one of the extravagant floats that symbolise the world’s most famous carnival.
Of the 20 people injured in the accident “eight were sent to hospital in ambulances”, including three severely injured women, the Health Secretary of Rio de Janeiro’s office said.
But despite the casualties and pools of blood on the rain spattered ground, the party soon got back in swing.
Brazilians living through two years of steep recession and nearly 13% unemployment have grasped this year’s carnival as a chance to let off steam.
In Rio especially, the thrill of hosting the Olympics six months ago has given way to the grim reality of rising crime and near bankruptcy of the state government.
There were intense cheers around the packed stadium of 70,000 people the moment the drumming began to thunder up from the piste.
Samba queens dressed in sequinned micro-costumes and vast feathered headdresses danced at dizzying speed. Behind them came armies of drummers and costumed dancers, interspersed by the floats.
Each school picks a theme for its parade and is judged according to strict criteria.
More schools were to parade last night, with the champion to be announced tomorrow, the start of Lent in mostly Roman Catholic Brazil. — AFP