Rains began pelting Rio again early yesterday, hours after the heaviest deluge on record sent killer mudslides cascading down hillsides and turned streets into raging torrents in Brazil’s second-biggest city.
Authorities feared the added water could dislodge more saturated ground and raise the death toll from 95 in Rio and the neighboring city of Niteroi. Most of the deaths came when landslides smashed over shacks in slums built precariously on steep slopes.
Huge red-brown paths of destruction slashed through shantytowns.
PHOTO: AFP
Concrete and wooden homes were crushed and hurtled downhill, only to bury other structures.
Rio, which will host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, ground to a near halt as Mayor Eduardo Paes urged workers to stay home and ordered all schools closed. Most businesses were shuttered.
Streets across the city were quiet as flooded roadways made travel nearly impossible even before rain started falling again before dawn.
Twenty-eight centimeters of rain drenched Rio in less than 24 hours on Tuesday and the forecast called for more rain through the weekend, though it was expected to lessen.
Officials said potential mudslides threatened at least 10,000 homes in the city of 6 million people. Some 1,200 people were left homeless by Tuesday’s downpour.
Paes called on people in endangered areas to take refuge with family or friends and he said no one should venture out.
“It is not advisable for people to leave their homes,” the mayor said. “We want to preserve lives.”
He told the Web site of the newspaper O Globo that the rainfall was the most that Rio had ever recorded in such a short period. The previous high was 23cm that fell on Jan. 2, 1966.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged Brazilians to pray for the rain to stop.
“This is the greatest flooding in the history of Rio de Janeiro, the biggest amount of rain in a single day,” he told reporters. “And when the man upstairs is nervous and makes it rain, we can only ask him to stop the rain in Rio de Janeiro so we can go on with life in the city.”
A representative for the Rio de Janeiro fire department, which was coordinating rescue efforts, said 95 people were known dead and about 100 were injured.
“We expect the death toll to rise,” said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Claudio Ribeiro, a 24-year-old taxi driver, spent eight hours stranded on a highway on Tuesday.
“I have never seen anything like this,” he said, wiping steam from the inside of his windshield to reveal a flooded roadway with hundreds of cars, taxis and buses packed together on high ground between raging torrents.
“Tell me, how is this city supposed to host the Olympics?” Ribeiro asked. “Look at this chaos!”
Neither the 2014 World Cup nor the 2016 Olympics will be held during Brazil’s rainy season. The rains normally fall during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer in December through February, but the season has stretched into April this year.
Silva played down the possibility that similar downpours could wash out the biggest sporting events Brazil will ever host.
“Normally ... June and July are calmer, and Rio de Janeiro is prepared to host the Olympics and is prepared to host the World Cup with a lot of tranquility,” da Silva said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese