A 4-year-old Brazilian child died in a fire in Lowell, in the United States, which destroyed the house where she and her family lived.
Pietra Emanuelle Silva Araújo was born in Governador Valadares (MG), lived in Brazil for the first three years of her life and was in the US since July 2021. She lived with her parents, Sylvia and Alexandre, in the city of 115,000 inhabitants in the region. of Boston, which brings together a large Brazilian community.
On Thursday afternoon (3), strong flames reached the upper floors of a small residential building. Firefighters were called and acted quickly, but by the time they arrived the fire had already spread widely. They managed to rescue five people from the scene, and witnesses told local TV that a woman threw a baby from the third floor for rescue.
It took four hours to control the flames.
Pietra, however, was unable to escape. She was initially reported missing, and her body was found after the situation was brought under control. The causes of the fire are still being investigated.
The fire destroyed the homes and belongings of at least 28 people. Among those affected are five children under the age of 18 and three Brazilian families, according to Adriana Swann, a neighbor of theirs.
“At the moment these three families are staying in my house and I’m trying to help as much as I can. They lost everything, but thank God they didn’t lose their lives. They’ve only been living in the US for seven months and with that [há] also the language barrier,” she wrote on social media.
Swann organizes a campaign on the GoFundMe website to help victims. By the beginning of this Tuesday night (8), US$ 12 thousand (R$ 60 thousand) had already been raised, from a goal of US$ 15 thousand (R$ 75.9 thousand). THE sheet sent messages to her, but received no response until the publication of this text.
An evangelical church also helped raise donations of clothes and shoes for Brazilian families, and the local Red Cross provided assistance to victims. Some of them were taken to a hotel. At this time of year, the local temperature can be around 0°C overnight.
Sokhary Chau, the mayor of Lowell, said the fire and Pietra’s death came on “a sad day for the city”. According to him, the city would help families to obtain donations and reorganize their lives.
Near the site of the fire, tributes were placed. A fire hydrant was decorated with a children’s party balloon, teddy bears and several candles, according to The Boston Globe.
One of the residents of the building, identified as KC, told the local press that he only had the clothes on his back and the objects he had taken to work on the day of the tragedy.
He lived on the first floor and was not home at the time of the fire. Warned by neighbors, he ran back, but couldn’t get in to get anything. “My mind is empty. You don’t know what to think, where to go now,” he told local media.
