Brazil: after a heat wave, a storm sows death in the southeast
After record temperatures this week, a violent storm hit Brazil on Friday March 22. In the Rio de Janeiro region, nine people have already died due to bad weather. An assessment which risks getting even worse, because the situation remains very critical this weekend.
The emotion of a resident of Petropolis, Brazil on March 23, 2024, as rescuers found a 4-year-old girl alive in the rubble of a collapsed building after a violent storm. AP - Bruna Prado
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Petropolis, a tourist town located on the mountainside 70 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro, was submerged by more than 24 hours of torrential rain. Record rainfall transformed the Quitandinha River into a powerful torrent that burst its banks and swept away everything in its path.
Bridges were torn down, roads were flooded and landslides buried multi-story residential buildings. Reinforcements of police and the army were deployed on site to help rescuers find survivors.
After exceptional heat,
with temperatures feeling over 60° this week in Rio
, the arrival of a cold front in the Caribbean region is causing this phenomenon of violent storms. This is not the first time that Petropolis has been plagued by a natural disaster: in 2023, 180 people were killed in February, and another 150 in November,
during similar floods
.
Read also South America, Africa: entire continents are experiencing a record heat wave
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