The heavy rains that hit Brazil have caused almost a hundred deaths

The tragedy caused by the heavy rains in the metropolitan region of the Brazilian city of Recife, with 91 dead and 26 people missing so far, mobilizes the different forces of the country in the rescue and care work for the victims who survived.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
30 May 2022 Monday 11:47
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The heavy rains that hit Brazil have caused almost a hundred deaths

The tragedy caused by the heavy rains in the metropolitan region of the Brazilian city of Recife, with 91 dead and 26 people missing so far, mobilizes the different forces of the country in the rescue and care work for the victims who survived.

This Monday, the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, flew over the affected area and announced an interest-free line of credit for affected micro-entrepreneurs and the immediate release of federal resources destined for municipalities that experience this type of catastrophe.

"We are obviously sad and we express our voice of regret to the relatives. Our main objective is to comfort the relatives and supply the material goods to serve the population," Bolsonaro said at a press conference at the Recife military air base, side of several of his ministers.

The Fire Department of the state of Pernambuco (northeast) updated the number of fatalities on Monday to 91 and told Efe that the number of missing persons stood at 26, because many people lived alone and their situation was only known when their death was detected. absence from their places of work at the beginning of the week.

The Jardim Monte Verde neighborhood, in the municipality of Jaboatao dos Guararapes and on the border with Recife, the regional capital of Pernambuco, has been the most affected by the heavy rains that since last May 22 hit several states of the northeast region of Brazil.

Since Saturday, when the situation worsened, members of the Army, the Civil Defense, the Fire Department, the Federal Police, local and federal relief agencies, and volunteers have been concentrating on the scene for rescue work day and night.

Before Saturday, the greatest damage had occurred in neighboring municipalities such as Camaragibe and the historic city of Olinda, where several houses were destroyed by landslides and floods, with five dead, all of them carried away by strong water currents.

The forecast is that the rains will reduce their intensity but will continue during the week, which makes it difficult to rescue bodies and belongings that people want to remove from the rubble and mud, but due to the imminent risk of new landslides, they have been prevented from doing so.

Some of the victims in Jardim Monte Verde, as a source from the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML) told Efe on Monday, died on Saturday in a second landslide when they returned to what was left of their homes to try to get documents, or objects from worth.

The international community has also expressed solidarity with Brazil and this Monday, for example, the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, gave his Brazilian counterpart his condolences for the fatalities of the heavy rains.

"Please accept our deepest condolences for the tragic consequences of heavy rains and floods in the northeastern states of your country," Putin said in a telegram posted on the Kremlin's website.

The president stressed that in Russia "the pain of those who lost their loved ones as a result of the widespread disaster is shared and we hope for a speedy recovery of all the victims."

The Pernambuco tragedy occurs two and a half months after heavy rainfall killed more than 230 people in Petrópolis, in the mountainous region of the state of Rio de Janeiro (northeast).

"We had similar problems in Petrópolis (Rio de Janeiro), in the south of Bahia, north of Minas Gerais and last year in Acre, unfortunately these catastrophes happen in our continental part," said the official during his visit to Recife.