Searches continued on Tuesday in southeastern Brazil to try to find the 38 people missing in landslides that swept away many homes, and could further increase the human toll by 44 dead.
More than 680 millimeters of rain fell in 24 hours in Sao Sebastiao, a seaside resort about 200 km from Sao Paulo, more than double the monthly rainfall. A national record according to the government of the State of Sao Paulo.
It is there that 43 deaths have so far been recorded in addition to that of a little girl further north, in the coastal town of Ubatuba.
“Search and rescue operations continue unabated,” Sao Paulo’s governor’s office said, adding that 1,730 people had been temporarily evacuated from their homes and 760 were left homeless.
“We don’t know what the death toll will be. We may find bodies where we didn’t imagine,” Governor Tarcisio de Freitas told AFP after returning from a helicopter flight over the city. the disaster area.
Thirty-eight people remain missing, a figure he said could push the number of people who died in Sunday’s deadly mudslides to more than 70.
But adverse weather conditions were hampering search efforts as night fell, with further rain making the ground in the area “very wet and slippery”. And the national meteorological service (Inmet) announced the continuation of showers in the region throughout the week.
Twenty-five people, including six children, are being treated in hospitals, seven in serious condition, according to local authorities, adding that nearly a thousand rescuers, 50 cars and 14 helicopters were dispatched to the scene.
In Sao Sebastiao, a tent was erected for a collective vigil in homage to the victims, while the population helped each other to clean the mud which invaded the houses which did not yield under the pressure.
In the neighboring town of Juquehy, residents still shaken by the storm wiped out over the weekend were tested Tuesday morning by new landslides. About 80 people fled their homes but no casualties were reported, authorities said.
In Vila Sahy, 40 kilometers from Sao Sebastiao, rescuers cleared tree trunks with chainsaws, cleared huge stones and shoveled mud guided by dogs.
“It’s a scene of war. We are looking for 13 people,” said Daniel de Oliveira, 21, a rescue officer in the area, who was shoveling mud from the windows of a buried car.
The authorities have urged the evacuation of all non-residents but many roads still blocked by landslides force the evacuation of holidaymakers by boat.
“We couldn’t go anywhere. We left the car there and had to come back by boat,” Gabriel Bonavides, a 19-year-old student who was vacationing in a rental house during the weekend, told AFP. long carnival holiday weekend.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who flew over the disaster area on Monday, warned of the dangers of urban constructions located at the foot of hills, such as those washed away in Sao Sebastiao.
Brazil’s National Natural Disaster Monitoring and Warning Center (Cemaden) estimates that 9.5 million people live in areas prone to landslides or floods, many of them in favelas lacking basic sanitation infrastructure. .
Brazil, which is suffering the effects of climate change, is plagued by repeated natural disasters, such as in February 2022 in Petropolis in the state of Rio de Janeiro, where more than 230 people died following heavy rains.
02/21/2023 22:48:32 – São Sebastião (Brésil) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
