Heavy rain that has hit Rio de Janeiro and neighboring cities since Friday has left at least seven people dead and many injured by Saturday morning. Rescue teams continue to search for missing people in several cities, but they also face great challenges working in such heavy rain and the constant risk of landslides.
Four of the dead were residents of a house in the neighborhood of Independencia, in the town of Petropolis, a mountainous area that was buried this Friday after the slope behind it collapsed and hit the house, leaving several people missing. The actions of a tracker dog saved a baby trapped under rubble. The animal discovered it and the child emerged from the mud alive on Friday evening, but his father, a 26-year-old man, was not so lucky and was pulled from the rubble dead on Saturday morning.
In the city of Teresopolis, also in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, a man was buried when the house he lived in, in the community of Korea, could not withstand the weight of the rain and collapsed, while two other people were rescued. at least one more is alive and buried. In Duque de Caxias, a town in the region known as Baixada Fluminense, the death of a driver whose truck was swept into the river by a strong flood that suddenly formed on the road while he was driving to Santa Cruz da. Serra region. .
Elsewhere in Greater Rio de Janeiro, in the lakeside city of Arraial do Cabo, a street vendor was also killed after being struck by lightning while answering a call on his mobile phone during heavy rain. Several people near him also suffered from very strong electrical discharges of lesser intensity, but two of them had to be hospitalized due to burns.
Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes has been appealing to the population since Thursday evening for everyone who can to stay indoors until at least next Monday, when the rains are expected to lose some of their intensity. and those living in risk areas should leave them as quickly as possible and find refuge in a safe place. Meteorology predicts that Rio de Janeiro will receive up to 500 millimeters of rain this weekend, a brutal amount of rain in just three days that is higher than it usually rains in the entire month of March.
Author: Domingos Grilo Serrinha This correspondent in Brazil
Source: CM Jornal
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