The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Mudslide death toll now 58
The death toll from devastating mudslides and floods that swept through a mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro state has reached 58, local authorities said yesterday.
The city of Petropolis was struck by a deluge on Tuesday, and Mayor Rubens Bomtempo said the number of dead could rise as searchers pick through the wreckage.
Rosilene Virgilio, 49, was in tears as she recalled the pleas for help from a woman she could not save.
“Yesterday there was a woman screaming ‘help, get me out of here,’ but we couldn’t do anything – the water was gushing out, the mud was gushing out,” Virgilio told The Associated Press.
“Our city unfortunately is finished.”
Governor Claudio Castro said that he was mustering all the state government’s heavy machinery to help dig out the buried area.
He told journalists that soldiers were already working in the stricken region, which saw more than 900 deaths from heavy rainfall back in January 2011.
The state fire department said late on Tuesday that the area had 25.8cm (just over 10in) of rain within three hours that day – almost as much as the previous 30 days combined.
Video posted on social media showed cars and houses being dragged away by landslides, and water swirling through Petropolis and neighbouring districts.
The Globo television network showed houses buried beneath mud in areas firefighters had not yet been able to access.
Several streets remained inaccessible yesterday as cars and household goods piled up, blocking access to higher parts of the city.
“The neighbours came running and I gave them shelter,” bar owner Emerson Torre, 39, said.
But under torrents of water, his roof collapsed. He managed to get his mother and three other people out of the bar in time, but one neighbour and that person’s daughter were unable to escape.
“It was like an avalanche, it fell all at once. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mr Torre told the AP as rescue helicopters hovered overhead.
“Every neighbour has lost a loved one, has lost two, three, four members of the same family, kids.”
Petropolis’s city hall declared three days of mourning.