Truck accident mars joyful Rio carnival
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 all-night dance-off on Sunday.
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.
It drove too close to a fence at the entrance to the competition piste, leaving several people unable to escape.
Three 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 symbolize 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 percent 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 that drumming began to thunder up from the piste.
The most daring parade was from the samba school known as Imperatriz Leopoldinense, which chose the destruction of Brazil’s majestic Amazon rainforest as its theme.
Floats included portrayals of the jungle, indigenous musicians, piles of skulls and a giant head of a crying indigenous man, crushed by a log the size of a bus.
Members of real native tribes were joining the parade to raise awareness about their plight.