Brazil floods and landslides leave misery in wake
Raging waters bring death and destruction to a mountainous regoin outside the city of Rio de Janeiro.
When we first arrived in Terisopolis, Brazil, on Wednesday night at around 11 pm the town police station had been turned into a morgue. (My report from that night, here)
The next day, the true scope of the disaster was obvious.
These are a few photos I have taken over the past few days here.
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Above: This truck was thrown about by the force of the raging waters. This was one of the first scenes of destruction we saw as we drove into the epicentre of the disaster area.
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Above: The flow of the flash floods simply wiped out everything in its path. When we arrived, people were saying things like, “We found the wife down the river, one of the son’s is buried in the mud, and the father is missing.”
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Above: This was a hotel. Two bodies were pulled from it while we were there. One man said people inside the hotel were on the roof, but many got swept away when the water reached the roof.
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Above: When bodies were pulled out they simply were put under any tarp that could be found until trucks arrived that could take them back to the city morgue. Some bodies were sitting on the dirt for hours.
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Above: Jorge Aldeia, 67, standing in front of what is left of his furniture business. “I still have my life, but that is about it,” Aldeia told me.
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Above: This photo shows just how high and how thick the mud is in some places.
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Above: A restaurant, now filled with mud.
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Above: A minivan sits in the middle of this wreckage.
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Photo: Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera
Above: People picking through the rubble, trying to salvage anything possible.
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Photo: Maria Elena Romero/Al Jazeera
Above: Rescuers wading through a house. Two lifeless bodies were buried under the mud.