Photo credit, Reuters
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The landslides in Petropolis were triggered by an unusually large amount of rainfall.
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When heavy rain started to fall, Giselli Carvalho rushed home.
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She worried about her mother and her one-year-old daughter, Helena. Along the way, Giselli met a neighbor who told him the terrible news: the family home had been flattened by one of the many landslides that hit the Brazilian city of Petropolis on February 15.
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“It took me nine years to get pregnant because I wanted to raise my daughter properly,” she told Brazilian news channel Globo TV.
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“I enjoyed my baby’s company for just over a year.”
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“I keep thinking this is a nightmare and I’m going to wake up and see Helena here with me,” she tearfully added.
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When the landslide occurred, Giselli’s niece, Maria Carminante, was also in the house, located in the Morro da Oficina slum. The three bodies were found together on a sofa.
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Photo credit, Getty Images
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Authorities say more than 100 people have died and more than 30 are still missing.
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Petropolis, a popular tourist destination in the hills above Rio de Janeiro, was hit with a month’s worth of rain in just three hours.
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The deluge triggered flash floods and landslides, killing more than 100 people, according to Brazil’s National Civil Defense.
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More than 30 people are still missing.
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But Petropolis is no stranger to such disasters.
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The city, once the summer getaway for Brazilian monarchs in the 19th century, is a tourist destination and a traditional refuge for people fleeing the summer heat of Rio de Janeiro.
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But it has also seen unchecked urban growth, with poorer households moving up hillsides, often into areas left unstable by deforestation and inadequate drainage.
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A 2017 report commissioned by city authorities estimated that nearly 20% of Petropolis’ area was “at high risk of landslide and flooding”.
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Photo credit, Reuters
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Brazil’s National Civil Defense recorded more than 200 landslides in the city.
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The city and neighboring municipalities have experienced similar disasters in recent decades during the rainy season – in 2011 over 900 deaths were recorded in the region.
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But according to local authorities, it is the worst rains in Petropolis since 1932.
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Southeast Brazil has been hit by heavy rains since the start of the year, with more than 40 deaths recorded between incidents in Minas Gerais state in early January and Sao Paulo state later the same month.
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Lucas Ribas, a dentist who works in downtown Petropolis, had to flee his practice when the waters rose. He told the BBC he witnessed “scenes worthy of a horror movie”.
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“There were bodies in the street, people who had been washed away by the rain.”
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On February 16, the National Civil Defense recorded 269 landslide incidents in the city and reported that more than 50 houses had been destroyed.
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Photo credit, Reuters
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According to local authorities, this is the worst rain in Petropolis since 1932.
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These figures, along with the death toll considering the number of missing people, are only expected to increase as more rains are forecast for the region.
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Giselli Carvalho is now one of hundreds of homeless people who have been accommodated in makeshift shelters in Petropolis.
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She had planned a party for her daughter’s second birthday, themed after Disney’s animated film Moana.
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“Everything was ready for the party. Now I don’t know what to do with myself,” she said, showing reporters videos of Helena’s first day at nursery, just days before the tragedy.
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