More rain lashes southeast Brazil as death toll hits 54

JUIZ DE FORA: Fresh downpours have brought more flooding, landslides and fear to southeastern Brazil where rescuers were still looking for 14 missing people Thursday after a rainstorm that left 54 people dead.

More than 5,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since a deluge late Monday caused landslides that buried dozens of people and unleashed flooding in the cities of Juiz de Fora and Uba.

On Wednesday night residents received yet another alert on their cellphones as rain lashed the region.

“It rained a lot, the riverbank collapsed even further, and civil defense called us to evacuate,” Luiz Otavio Souza, a 35-year-old salesman who had to leave his home and whose nephew is missing, told AFP.

“Everyone is panicking, friends and relatives are asking how we are, it’s like a horror movie,” said the resident of Parque Burnier, one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in Juiz de Fora where a wall of mud buried multiple houses on Monday night.

READ MORE: At least 14 dead after heavy rains hit southeastern Brazil

In the Tres Moinhos neighborhood, three houses were buried by landslides in the early morning hours of Thursday after their residents were evacuated, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.

Several residents who had to abandon their homes returned to the neighborhood to retrieve furniture, appliances, mattresses, and even pets they had left behind.

The governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, on Wednesday denied accusations that his government had reduced investments in protection against such natural disasters.

His comments on X came after the television program Jornal Nacional reported, the state government had cut spending to prevent such disasters by 95 percent over the past three years.

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.

The mayor of Juiz de Fora, Margarida Salomao, said the municipality had experienced its wettest February on record.

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.