Brazil Resort Mudslide Horror: Scores Dead
Current World News Comments (0)
10:16pm UK, Saturday January 02, 2010
Jo Couzens,
Sky News Online
At least 64 people have been killed after heavy rain sparked a series of mudslides in Brazil, including one at an upmarket island resort that has left more than 20 dead.
To view this content you need Flash and Javascript enabled in your browser.
Please download Flash from the Adobe download website.
The deadliest mudslide happened on the island resort of Ilha Grande, near Rio de Janeiro, where at least 26 people lost their lives early on New Year’s Day.
Authorities said Sankay Pousada, a hotel in the beach resort which can only be accessed by boat, was fully booked with 50 guests.
A 300 metre-wide slab of earth collapsed on three houses and the waterfront hotel at the foot of a jungle-shrouded hillside.
State officials said another landslide send mud cascading onto a slum (favela) in the nearby coastal city of Angra dos Reis, 95 miles south of Rio, leaving at least 13 people dead.
Ilha Grande and coastal city Angra dos Reis suffered the deadliest mudslides
More than 100 rescue workers have been scrambling through a mountain of mud and crushed homes to search for survivors.
Police helicopters and navy vessels were mobilised to help in the rescue operation.
One witness, who was staying next to the Ilha Grande resort, described the devastation as the mudslide pushed private homes and the hotel into the sea.
“It was raining hard and the water was leaking into our house,” Fernanda de Oliveira told O Globo newspaper.
“Suddenly we saw people in the sea and we went down to rescue them. They were people staying in the pousada.”
People had never seen so much rain in this region.
Rio de Janeiro’s vice governor Luiz Fernando Pezao
She added: “We came to celebrate the New Year and then all this sadness happened.”
In Rio, a separate mudslide killed 11 and around 80 mudslides have been reported throughout the region in recent days, toppling trees and destroying power lines.
They were triggered by 10 inches of rain that has fallen on the area since Wednesday and forecasters are predicting more rain to come.
“People had never seen so much rain in this region,” Rio de Janeiro’s vice governor, Luiz Fernando Pezao, told Globo TV.
Mr Pezao said he feared more bodies would be discovered: “We’ll have to wait for the rescue efforts, but we’ll likely encounter a very sad outcome.”
admin @ January 3, 2010