More rain lashes south-east Brazil as death toll hits 55
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Firefighters carrying a body found in Juiz de Fora on Feb 24, after heavy rain caused a landslide. On Feb 26, rescuers in Brazil were still looking for 14 missing people.
PHOTO: AFP
- Deadly floods and landslides in southeastern Brazil left 54 dead, 14 missing, and over 5,000 evacuated amidst widespread panic.
- Governor Zema denied reports of 95% cuts in disaster prevention spending, while Juiz de Fora experienced its wettest February on record.
- This disaster is the latest in Brazil's extreme weather events, linked by scientists to global warming, following 2024's record floods.
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JUIZ DE FORA, Brazil - Fresh downpours have brought more flooding, landslides and fear to south-eastern Brazil where rescuers were still looking for 13 missing people on Feb 26 after a rainstorm that left 55 people dead.
More than 5,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since a deluge late on Feb 23 caused landslides that buried dozens of people
On the night of Feb 25, residents received yet another alert on their cellphones as rain lashed the region.
“It rained a lot, the riverbank collapsed even further, and civil defence called us to evacuate,” Mr Luiz Otavio Souza, a 35-year-old salesman who had to leave his home and whose nephew is missing, told AFP.
“Everyone is panicking, friends and relatives are asking how we are, it’s like a horror movie,” said the resident of Parque Burnier, one of the hardest-hit neighbourhoods in Juiz de Fora where a wall of mud buried multiple houses on the night of Feb 23.
In the Tres Moinhos neighbourhood, three houses were buried by landslides in the early morning hours of Feb 26 after their residents were evacuated, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.
Several residents who had to abandon their homes returned to the neighbourhood to retrieve furniture, appliances, mattresses, and even pets they had left behind.
The governor of Minas Gerais, Mr Romeu Zema, on Wednesday Feb 25 denied accusations that his government had reduced investments in protection against such natural disasters.
His comments on X came after the television programme Jornal Nacional reported, the state government had cut spending to prevent such disasters by 95 per cent over the past three years.
The tragedy is the latest in a series of extreme weather disasters in Brazil, from floods to fires and drought, many of which scientists have linked to the effects of global warming.
Brazilian meteorologist Carlos Nobre attributed the unusually heavy downpours to a passing cold front system over the “very warm” Atlantic Ocean.
He told AFP this causes a lot of water evaporation and the formation of cumulonimbus clouds “which cause these enormous downpours.”
“All these extreme phenomena are associated with the fact that global warming brings more energy into the atmosphere.”
The mayor of Juiz de Fora, Ms Margarida Salomao, said the municipality had experienced its wettest February on record.
In 2024, more than 200 people died and two million were impacted by unprecedented flooding in southern Brazil, one of the worst natural disasters in its history. AFP
