Brazil has just crossed a tragic symbolic bar.
The death toll from the torrential rains that devastated much of the city of Petropolis has exceeded 200, authorities said on Wednesday, as firefighters continued to search for dozens of missing.
According to the latest police figures, 204 people, "124 women and 80 men", died in the floods and landslides, and 51 people are still missing.
More than 800 people forced to leave their homes remain housed in emergency reception facilities, including municipal schools.
Unheard of since 1932
On February 15, it rained in a few hours in the evening more than the average for a month of February, the greatest volume of precipitation on record since 1932. The violent storms caused landslides which destroyed dozens of houses built on the hillside.
The extreme rainfall also caused terrible flooding, turning the streets of this tourist-heavy city into torrents of mud and overturning vehicles, including buses, that were washed into rivers.
Most of the victims were residents of houses built in risk areas, without building permits, in this city of 300,000 inhabitants located in a mountainous region 60 km north of Rio de Janeiro.
According to the Natural Disaster Monitoring Center (Cemaden), about 9.5 million people in Brazil live in so-called “at risk” areas, particularly vulnerable to floods or landslides.
Most of them live in favelas, poor neighborhoods with precarious constructions, most often without mains drainage.
World
Death toll from rains and floods in Petropolis rises to 186
Planet
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