Officials: Devastating floods, mudslides kill scores in Brazil
PETROPOLIS, Brazil — The death toll from devastating mudslides and floods that swept through a mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro state has reached 78, local authorities said Wednesday.
The city of Petropolis was slammed by a deluge Tuesday, and Gov. Claudio Castro said almost 400 people were left homeless. Searchers picked through the wreckage; 21 people were recovered alive.
Civilians joined the official recovery efforts.
Among them were Priscila Neves and her siblings, who looked through the mud for any sign of their disappeared parents, but found only clothing. Neves said she had given up hope of finding her parents alive.
And Rosilene Virgilio, 49, was in tears as she recalled the desperate pleas from someone she couldn’t save.
“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 said.
The stricken mountain region has seen similar catastrophes in recent decades, including one that caused more than 900 deaths. In the years since, Petropolis presented a plan to reduce risks of landslides, but work has advanced slowly.
Castro told reporters Wednesday that the situation “was almost like war” and that he was mustering all the state government’s heavy machinery to help dig out the buried area.
The state fire department said late Tuesday the area received just over 10 inches of rain within three hours — almost as much as during the previous 30 days combined. Petropolis’ civil defense authority said more rain was expected.
Video posted on social media Tuesday showed cars and houses being dragged away by landslides, and water swirling through Petropolis and neighboring districts.
The Globo television network Wednesday showed houses buried beneath mud in areas firefighters hadn’t yet been able to access. Several streets remained inaccessible as cars and household goods piled up, blocking access to higher parts of the city.
“The neighbors came down running and I gave them shelter,” bar owner Emerson Torre, 39, recalled.
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 neighbor and the person’s daughter were unable to escape.
“It was like an avalanche, it fell all at once. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Torre said as rescue helicopters hovered overhead. “Every neighbor has lost a loved one, has lost two, three, four members of the same family, kids.”
Petropolis’ city hall declared three days of mourning. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro expressed solidarity while on a trip to Russia, as did his counterpart Vladimir Putin.
“May God comfort their family members,” Bolsonaro said Wednesday at a news conference in Moscow.
Petropolis is a German-influenced city named for a former Brazilian emperor.