SAO PAULO (Reuters) – The death toll from heavy rains in the Brazilian city of Petropolis, located in a mountainous region of the state of Rio de Janeiro, has risen to 104 as of Thursday morning, according to the state’s fire department.
The downpours, which on Tuesday alone exceeded the average for the entire month of February, caused mudslides that buried homes, flooded streets, washed away cars and buses and left gashes hundreds of yards wide on the region’s mountainsides.
Rio de Janeiro Governor Claudio Castro on Wednesday described the situation as “almost like war” as fire department and local civil defense teams kept working onsite.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has promised to help the region and said he would visit the affected areas on Friday, once he is back from an official trip to Russia and Hungary.
Since December, heavy rains have triggered deadly floods and landslides in northeastern and southern Brazil, while threatening to delay harvests in the nation’s central western region and briefly forcing the suspension of mining operations in the state of Minas Gerais.
(Reporting by Eduardo Simoes in Sao Paulo; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; editing by John Stonestreet)
