the death the toll of devastating mudslides and floods that swept through a mountainous region region of The state of Rio de Janeiro has reached 38, according to a statement from local authorities on Wednesday morning.
After the city of Petropolis was hit by a flood on Tuesday, on fear the number of dead could rise higher as searchers excavated the wreckage.
Rosilene Virgilio, 49, was in tears on Wednesday as she remembered the pleas for help of a woman she couldn’t save.
“Yesterday there was a woman who was screaming ‘Help! out of here!’ But we couldn’t do anything, the water was gushing out the mud was gushing outshe told The Associated Press (AP). ” Our city is unfortunately over.”
The state fire the ministry said Tuesday evening that more over 180 soldiers were already job in the stricken region which has seen hundreds of deaths due to heavy rains in 2011.
The ministry said that area got 25.8 centimeters (just over 10 inches) of rain in three hours Tuesday – almost as much as the previous 30 days combined.
Pictures posted on social media showed cars and homes washed away by landslides and whirlwinds across Petropolis and nearby neighborhoods.
“The neighbors came down run and gave them shelter,” bar owner Emerson Torre, 39, told AP.
But under the torrents of water, the roof collapsed. He managed to get son mother and three others people out of the bar in time, but one neighbor and person daughter were unable to escape.
“It was like an avalanche, it fell suddenly. I never saw anything like “, said Torre, as rescue helicopters flew overhead. “Every neighbor has lost a loved one, one has lost two, three, four limbs of the same familychildren.”
Governor Claudio Castro said on Twitter that he gathered all the machines heavy belonging to several State Secretariats for help to dig out the buried area.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on a trip to Russia, said on Twitter that he asked his ministers to deliver immediately support to the afflicted.
“May God console the family members of the victims,” he wrote.
Southeast Brazil has been punished with heavy rain since start of the year, with more more than 40 deaths recorded between incidents in State of Minas Gerais in early January and Sao Paulo State later the same month.
