At least 120 people have died after heavy rains sent devastating mudslides and floods through a mountainous region of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state.
Petrópolis, the “imperial city” which was the summer getaway of Brazil’s monarchs in the 19th century, was directly in the path of the deluge when it hit on Tuesday.
The city’s mayor, Rubens Bomtempo, said the number of dead could keep on rising as searchers picked through the wreckage. Twenty-one people had been recovered alive.
Rio de Janeiro state governor, Claudio Castro, told reporters in Petrópolis: “The situation is almost like war … Cars hanging from poles, cars overturned, lots of mud and water.”
Civilians joined the official recovery efforts on Wednesday. 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.
Rosilene Virgilio, 49, was in tears as she recalled the pleas for help from a woman she couldn’t 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 Cláudio 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 about 900 deaths from heavy rainfall in January 2011.
The state fire department said late on Tuesday the area received 25.8cm (just over 10in) of rain within three hours on Tuesday – almost as much as during the previous 30 days combined.
Video posted on social media showed cars and houses being dragged away by landslides, and water swirling through Petrópolis and neighboring districts. The Globo television network showed houses buried beneath mud in areas firefighters had not yet been able to access.
Several streets remained inaccessible on Wednesday 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 told the AP as rescue helicopters hovered overhead. “Every neighbor has lost a loved one, has lost two, three, four members of the same family, kids.”
Petrópolis city hall declared three days of mourning. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on a trip to Russia, said on Twitter that he instructed his ministers to deliver immediate support to the afflicted. “May God comfort the family members of the victims,” he wrote.
South-eastern Brazil has been punished with heavy rains since the start of the year, with more than 40 deaths recorded between incidents in Minas Gerais state in early January and São Paulo state later the same month.
Related: The best filter to remove PFAS from your drinking water at home…
Support my work
If you follow my website, you already know that my site has been banned from ALL ADS NETWORKS! So now I really count on you and your donations to keep Strange Sounds up and running! Support my work and family. Thank you for your help!
Paypal Donation Link
If you use Amazon, you can also use our link below, to enable us getting a small affiliate revenue. Thanks again!
Support Us With Amazon
Galileyo is your go-to destination to get uncensored news from the people you trust, directly to your satellite phone. Get a sat phone for a small monthly fee and be able to communicate with your loved ones and receive news during any disasters. Be ready! Get prepared
Subscribe to Galileyo
If you are looking for a 100% lightning and EMP protection for your home and car, EMP-Shield is the right product for you! Get a 50$ discount on any of your purchase using coupon: strangesounds…
EMP Shield Coupon: strangesounds
You should really subscribe to QFiles. You will get very interesting information about strange events around the world.
How much of this is natural and how much of it is via geoengineering?
mud huts in the hills have always washed out under rain. third world countries must adopt first world public works like using concrete in roads sidewalks, use drainage pipes have systems to manage the rain. what they do have is mud hut theory that will never last when a rain story’s of life come to the ville.
And they didn’t think that with that much rain they didn’t need to pay attention? On even fairly stable ground you would still need to pay attention because that much rain will unsettle almost any hillside.
It’s Brazil. From what I understand they literally have no building codes.
Still think these worldwide cataclysmic events are the result of anthropogenic global warming? The establishment secret is that they know the cause of ever- intensifying earth changes, but don’t want you to panic. In fact, the ruling elite don’t even want you to prepare, as they only need an easily- controlled, modest number for their servant/ labor force.
The secret the establishment guards carefully, involves celestial perturbations- the magnetic influence of one planet to another with a dissimilar density. Thus, we have Planet X, aka Nibiru, inbound from 90 mil miles away and with a density/ mass of 24X that of Earth, causing magnetic clashing with Earth; as it draws nearer, the repulsion force increases, causing Earth to rotate in a severe wobble. The wobble is actually loosening Earth’s tectonic plates, roiling the mantle and complicating weather and wind patterns; perhaps you’ve noticed the uptick in volcanic/ seismic events, severe and sudden changes in weather, permafrost melting from core to surface heating of Earth’s crust, marine and avian mass deaths from methane escaping fissures in the crust, spikes in the Schumann response, EMPs, power outages and aeronautical navigation/ declination failures, all from electronic screech when rock layers wrench apart.
You deserve to know the truth, so you can prepare.