The China Mail - Hope fades in search for missing after deadly Brazil rains

A violent downpour on Monday in the state of Minas Gerais turned streets into raging rivers and led to landslides which swept away houses and buried dozens of people.

The worst hit city was Juiz da Fora where 30 people were killed, while nearby Uba saw six deaths, according to the latest official tally.

More heavy rain was forecast for Juiz de Fora this week, and firefighters told AFP it was unlikely that any more victims would be found alive.

"Our family is desperate," said Josiane Aparecida, a 43-year-old cook in Juiz de Fora.

Her aunt died in a landslide and her cousin was found alive but passed away in hospital.

Aparecida was still looking through the rubble for her cousin's two children, ages six and nine, and boyfriend.

"We have hope, and yet we don't, because it's so difficult (to find them), and we've already lost two," she said.

A few blocks away, rescuers recovered the body of a man who, before dying, managed to pull his wife from their house which was engulfed by the landslide, firefighters told AFP.

The tragedy is the latest in a series of extreme weather disasters in Brazil, from floods to fires and drought, many of which scientists have linked to the effects of global warming.

In 2024, more than 200 people died and two million were impacted by unprecedented flooding in southern Brazil, one of the worst natural disasters in its history.

Two years earlier, a deluge in the city of Petropolis outside Rio de Janeiro left 241 people dead.

E.Lau--ThChM