Brazil is in mourning. At least 500 people have died in torrential rains that have lashed the three mountain towns of the State of Rio Teresópolis, Petrópolis and Nova Friburgo, in the early hours of Tuesday. The severity of floods and landslides that caused the most deaths forced the president Dilma Rousseff to move into the area from Brasilia in what is his first test since assuming office on January 1.Accompanied by Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, the Health, Alexandre Padilha and National Integration, Fernando Bezerra, just landed in Rio, Rousseff met with local authorities. The governor of Rio State, Sérgio Cabral, who hurried back from their vacation in Europe, flew to Rousseff affected areas.
After the flight, the president, visibly shaken, saying only: "People can expect strong action by the state." Most of the victims drowned or washed away, in some rivers rose to seven meters. The center of the city of Nova Friburgo, which has the highest death toll was yesterday strewn with furniture and utensils of every kind washed away after the houses collapsed.
Despite calls from the authorities for families-more than 5,000-leave their homes under threat of collapse, few did: "We were afraid to steal what little we had," told the media. The situation is far from being under control and the weather forecast is bleak: heavy rain at least until tomorrow.
Firefighters were able to reach only yesterday to many areas of the three affected cities and through the use of powerful tractors to cross the mountains of mud and debris piled up by the floods. "In 31 years I never lived anything like" Colonel Souza Vianna, fire battalion commander Itaipava displaced, in the resort city of Petropolis, the summer resort of kings during the time of empire, confessed to reporters: "From here to Teresópolis we only found dead.
In my 31 years of firefighter never experienced anything like it. " On television a woman was seen running with his face twisted in the streets of Teresópolis and loudly asking if anyone had seen his mother alive or dead "after watching helplessly being dragged by the water. Also the image of a bulldozer blade which featured a carefully wrapped bundle in a blue blanket, was the corpse of a child of four years.
Over 1,000 men worked yesterday in the three cities that, seen from the helicopters, looked bleak, very similar to the devastation of an earthquake, with whole neighborhoods fallen to the ground and turned into lakes of water and mud. "The situation is desolate," said Luiz Fernando Nipple, deputy governor of River State and Secretary of State for Works, who said that the death toll "will continue to grow, as there are isolated areas which have not yet teams rescue.
The chaotic situation in the three cities, virtually incommunicado, without electricity or landline telephone, he asked the authorities to ensure families that their dead so they could be buried as quickly as possible. And while the families of the victims mourned their dead and the wounded suffered no place in hospitals, as they could off the ground, political analysts began to warn that the tragedy can not be attributed "only rain, but a lack of prevention and neglect of local politicians that allow building in areas at risk.
Therefore, the catastrophe of Rio has been called "Death Foretold." Miriam Leta, an economic analyst for the daily O Globo, wrote: "The Brazilian cities are not prepared for now and for the future unless they announce climatologists." She said Brazil "needs to seriously rethink its entire urban policy" to curb property speculation and alleviate the shortage of eight million homes for the poor, they just built their huts on the slopes of risk supported by the mayors who look the other side to get votes.
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