thousands of people without electricity or water

A strong storm has left at least 31 dead and 38 missing in two municipalities in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, in the southeast of the country, still on alert for more rain, as reported this Tuesday by the Fire Department.

The epicenter of this new meteorological disaster is the municipality of Juiz de Forawhere 25 people died and attempts are being made to locate another 36, according to the latest official balance sheet.

The rest of the fatalities and missing persons have been registered in Ubá, about one hundred kilometers away from Juiz de Fora and where the passage of the storm has caused such magnitude of damage that it is very difficult to enter and leave the city.

In just one night, the intense rainfall has caused numerous landslides, damage to bridges and roads, power outages and entire flooded neighborhoods that have forced nearly 700 inhabitants between Juiz de Fora and Ubá to abandon their homes.

Half a thousand members of the security forces, aided by sniffer dogs, have rescued so far about 200 people alive and search for the missing among the rubble of the 74 houses that have collapsed.

One of the most delicate points is the Parque Jardim Burnier neighborhood, in Juiz de Fora, where a slope has buried a dozen homes. “Here we have five confirmed deaths, ten people were rescued alive and, according to the population, there are fifteen more missing,” he listed to the agency. Efe Demetrius, major of the Minas Gerais Fire Department.

Some neighbors collaborate in the work of clearing debris, while others observe from afar, between fear and apprehension, the mountain of earth that has buried entire lives, amidst alerts on cell phones about new rains.

“It’s a very sad moment. It has been an extremely rainy night; In a few hours it rained the equivalent of the entire month in terms of volume,” lamented the governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, in a press conference.

Hay thousands of people without electricity or water. Several schools have been set up to house the evicted. The first trucks with humanitarian aid are scheduled to arrive this Tuesday with hygiene and cleaning equipment.

More rain

The weather forecast, however, predicts more rain in the region in the coming hours.

The vice governor of Minas Gerais, Mateus Simões, asked the population to take the weather alerts seriously. “People who live in hillside areas should immediately leave their homes. The geological risk is very serious“he warned reporters.

The storm is due to a cold front that is advancing over the southeast of Brazil and has put the entire region on alert, where most of the country’s 213 million inhabitants live. This Wednesday another cold front is expected to cause more heavy rain.

By Thursday, the formation of an area of ​​low atmospheric pressure near the coast should expand the instability scenario in various areas of Minas Gerais, including the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, the regional capital.

For his part, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvaordered the “immediate mobilization” of his Government to assist the affected population.

During a stopover in Abu Dhabi, after making official visits to India and South Korea, the progressive leader decided to send a team from the public health service and expressed solidarity with the victims.

Climate catastrophes

Brazil has been hit in recent years by numerous extreme weather events as a result of strong storms, especially in the southern and southeastern region of the country.

One of the most serious and recent took place in May 2024 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where about 180 people died and many cities, including Porto Alegre, the regional capital, were inundated by water for weeks.

In 2023, another strong storm hit the coast of São Paulo with a death toll of 65.

In 2022, they took place Similar disasters with thousands of evacuees and hundreds of fatalities in the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Río de Janeiro.

In February of that year, in the city of Petrópolis alone, in the mountain region of Rio, an intense storm left about 240 dead.