Ten people died Sunday and Monday in floods and landslides following torrential rains in the state of Minas Gerais, in southeastern Brazil, local authorities said. Among the victims, five members of the same family including two children were killed when their car was covered by a mudslide in the town of Brumadinho.
Since the onset of the rains in early October, 19 people have died in this state due to the floods, while more than 17,200 others have had to leave their homes.
State of emergency declared in 145 cities
Vice Governor Paulo Brant lamented, in a video posted to Instagram, “the amount of precipitation, especially in a short period of time,” as well as “the mistakes of the past in the disorderly expansion of cities” and the lack of action in the face of “river sedimentation and pollution”. Some 145 of the 853 municipalities of Minas Gerais have thus had to declare a state of emergency.
Experts attribute the torrential rains to the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (ZCAS), which occurs during the southern summer with the encounter of a moisture corridor from the Amazon and cold air masses. from the South.
The state of Minas Gerais had already been bereaved on Saturday by the spectacular collapse of a section of a cliff that had killed ten people aboard a boat in a tourist lake below.