The rescue teams deployed in the Brazilian city of Petrópolis are still looking for at least 140 victims after having located until Thursday the bodies of more than a hundred people killed by the storm that on Tuesday night brought terror, desolation and devastation to this mountain municipality near Rio de Janeiro.
“At the moment we have registered 104 deaths.
And there are also 24 rescued alive ”, explained the Civil Defense.
Fifty firefighters have resumed rescue tasks at dawn in search of victims in the mud, while the authorities warn that there is a very high risk of new landslides due to the heavy rains expected this Thursday and Friday.
Petrópolis is a very touristic town, located 70 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro, which with its cool climate attracted Emperor Pedro II, who settled there when it was too hot in the then capital.
The former summer palace now houses the Imperial Museum.
The Army has joined the operation with soldiers and equipment to free streets.
Some neighbors also collaborate in the search for victims.
“I was raised here, I know everyone.
I came to help the (rescue) staff.
It's surreal.
Unfortunately, it's going to be difficult to find someone alive," explained Luciano Gonçalves, 26, to Agence France Presse as he searched, hoe in hand, through the mud that has taken over much of the city.
The rescue teams work in what the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Claudio Castro, described at first as a theater of war.
Firefighters search the mud with bulldozers, dogs, boats, and even aircraft.
The police have also deployed some 200 agents in this city of 300,000 residents to collect and cross-reference information on people whose whereabouts are unknown to draw up an official list.
Prior to this Thursday morning's update, there were 35 unaccounted for.
Specialists agree that catastrophes of this magnitude are due to a combination of factors.
In this case, they point to heavy rains, the topography of the region and, as in other similar tragedies that periodically shock Brazil, the fragility of slums built illegally in steep areas by families who cannot afford to live elsewhere. .
The authorities recorded in Petrópolis more than 300 landslides in addition to floods and tree falls.
On Tuesday night, the clouds unloaded on the city as much volume of water as expected for the entire month of February.
It was a historic storm.
Governor Castro has assured that it was “the worst rain since 1932″.
In any case, this city and other neighboring ones suffered an even greater tragedy a little more than a decade ago.
A storm in 2011 around the same time, in the middle of the rainy season, killed more than 900 people in the region.
Since December, Brazil has suffered other smaller tragedies due to extreme rains in the states of Bahia, São Paulo and Minas Gerais.
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