Another 134 people are missing, according to Rio’s Civil Defense, and continued heavy rains that forced the evacuation of another neighborhood in the city on Thursday could push that number up.
Rio’s Civil Defense said more than the historic average for all of February fell on Tuesday afternoon alone.
Floods poured through hilly neighborhoods, leaving a trail of destruction. Brazil’s civil defense secretariat said on Tuesday that 269 landslides have been recorded, DailyExpertNews affiliate DailyExpertNews Brasil reported.
Search and rescue teams waded through the mud on Wednesday, scanning the wreckage for survivors. The National Civil Defense said it had rescued 24 people, but more than 439 had lost their homes and rescue efforts were underway.
“The work continues and we will do the possible and the impossible to save lives,” Rio de Janeiro state governor Claudio Castro said in a tweet on Wednesday, sharing updates.
Seller Luis Felipe de Oliveira was still looking for his missing brother and grandmother on Thursday. “They are buried, but we don’t know if they are dead or alive,” he told DailyExpertNews. Rescue workers are targeting other houses near where the two lived, he said, so one of his brothers went to the site to dig through the mud. “I tell myself I will find them alive. But I am prepared for the worst,” Oliveira added.
Nestled in the hills north of the capital Rio de Janiero, Petropolis, nicknamed the “Imperial City” due to its popularity under the Brazilian monarchy in the 19th century, is known for its palatial architecture, grand theaters and museums. On Wednesday, photos and images showed that parts of the majestic city are in ruins.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who was in Moscow on Tuesday when the landslides began and then traveled on to Hungary, is expected to visit Petrópolis on Friday. He said on Wednesday that he had spoken to ministers and asked for “immediate assistance” to the victims.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Southern Brazil has experienced an increase in both the number of extreme rainfall events and the average amount of rainfall since the 1960s.
This is partly explained by natural variability in weather patterns, but also by climate change, as well as by aerosols and the depletion of ozone in the atmosphere.
The average temperature on Earth is now at least 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than before industrialization. Warming to 2C would mean even more intense and frequent extreme rainfall and flooding in southern Brazil, according to the IPCC.
Scientists say the world needs to make deep, sustained cuts in greenhouse gases, mainly by switching from fossil fuels, to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Brazil has experienced a number of natural disasters in recent months.
At least 24 people died in early February after torrential rains ravaged São Paulo, home to Brazil’s financial center, causing flooding and landslides in the southeastern Brazilian state.
More than 1,546 families have been displaced, according to a state civil defense statement, who also said that at least eight children died in the disaster.
And at the end of December, it was announced that the death toll from flooding and heavy rain, which has plagued the Brazilian state of Bahia since November, had risen to 20.
Floods also caused the bursting of two dams and the displacement of an estimated 62,800 people, state officials say.