TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Brazil storm death toll rises to 16
The death toll from torrential downpours that triggered flash floods and landslides in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state rose to 16, with three people still missing.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
View of the site of a landslide in which a mother and six of her children were killed, in Paraty, Rio de Janeiro state, on April 2, 2022. (AFP/Bruno Kaiuca)
T
he death toll from torrential downpours that triggered flash floods and landslides in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state rose to 16 Sunday, with three people still missing, authorities said.
Three days of heavy rain have battered a broad swathe of the southeastern state's Atlantic coast, the latest in a series of deadly storms in Brazil that experts say are being made worse by climate change.
Emergency workers pulled two more bodies early Sunday from the mud and wreckage left by a landslide in the Monsuaba neighborhood of Angra dos Reis, a seaside town 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Rio de Janeiro city, officials said.
In all, four children and four adults were killed there, the city government said. Emergency workers are still searching for three people reported missing in Monsuaba.
Another landslide in the picturesque colonial town of Paraty killed a mother and six of her children, aged two to 17.
A seventh child was rescued alive and taken to the hospital, where he was in stable condition, the mayor's office said.
In the Rio suburb of Mesquita, a 38-year-old man was electrocuted trying to help another person escape the flooding, officials and media reports said.
President Jair Bolsonaro said on Facebook the federal government had sent military aircraft to help the rescue effort and dispatched national disaster response secretary Alexandre Lucas to the state of 17.5 million people.
The new storms come six weeks after flash floods and landslides killed 233 people in the scenic city of Petropolis, the Brazilian empire's 19th-century summer capital, also in Rio state.
