Rescuers on Saturday found more bodies buried in massive mud in Petropolis (southeastern Brazil), which was hit by floods and landslides on Tuesday and now mourns at least 146 dead, including 26 children, according to the latest death toll. of the victims made public by the authorities.
Five days after the disaster, members of rescue teams, visible from a distance thanks to their orange uniforms, continued all day, with pickaxes and shovels in their hands, to search for missing people, the French Agency found.
Torrential rains that hit the picturesque mountain town of 300,000 on Tuesday, about 60 miles (60 kilometers) north of Rio de Janeiro, turned its roads into torrents and caused catastrophic landslides. Within six hours, it was raining in Petropolis that had a volume approximately equal to that of the precipitation of the whole of February according to the historical average.
More than 500 firefighters, helicopters, construction machinery, specially trained dogs: the operation continues in the once-summer imperial residence, although hopes of finding survivors are almost completely dashed.
In the Alto Sera district, where the mud engulfed almost 80 houses, members of rescue teams carried in their hands yesterday morning two corpses placed in special bags, a photojournalist of the French Agency found.
In the center, family members could not hold back their tears as rescue workers dug through the wreckage of a collapsed house, searching for the mother of four. The bodies of the father of both children have already been retrieved.
Just like in an earthquake rescue operation, rescue workers use whistles to send a message to those in the crowd to be quiet as they try to hear signs of life.
“Like ants”
Authorities say the mountains of mud and debris are unstable. The searches are thus done only with individual tools and chainsaws in the places where access is more difficult.
“It is impossible to bring heavy machinery up here, we have to work like ants,” explained Hobertu Amaral, co-ordinator of the search and rescue team of the Petropolis fire brigade.
From the beginning of the investigations, 24 people were found alive, but mainly in the first hours after the disaster.
President Zaich Bolsonaro, who inspected the affected areas from the air, described what he saw as “war scenes”.
The number of missing remains unclear. Police said Friday that they had received information about 218 missing persons, but did not say whether that number included the bodies of unidentified victims or people who had been found in the meantime.
So far, 91 of the 146 bodies recovered have been identified. 90 of the victims were buried in the largest cemetery in Petropolis, the 44 yesterday Saturday.
Life is slowly beginning to return to a somewhat smoother pace in the tourist city. So far, only supermarkets and pharmacies are open. Employees try to clear other stores.
A bookseller found that all her stock was destroyed. “She was in the basement. “The water reached the roof,” explained Sandra Correa Netu, 52. “We can not even give them away, they have been destroyed.”
Brazil has been hit by extremely deadly rainy weather this season – in the states of Bahia (northeast), Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo (southeast) – which experts link to climate change and global warming.
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