Authorities in the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil have updated the death toll from recent floods to 46 people, after homes and towns were left covered in mud and debris.
The state fire department published the revised figure on Wednesday, adding that about 21 people remain missing. Forty of the deaths took place in the town of Juiz de Fora, while the other six were from nearby Uba.
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About 3,600 residents have been displaced from the area, where emergency workers continue search operations.
“Our family is desperate,” Josiane Aparecida, a 43-year-old cook in Juiz de Fora, told the news service AFP.
She added that her aunt and cousin both died as a result of a landslide and that her cousin’s boyfriend and two children, ages six and nine, remain missing.
“We have hope, and yet we don’t, because it’s so difficult [to find them], and we’ve already lost two,” said Aparecida.
Torrential rains in southern Brazil have caused waterways to spill their banks and soil to become loosened on hillsides, sweeping away homes and engulfing dozens of people.
An 11-year-old boy named Bernardo Lopes Dutra was among those killed.
“It’s a tragedy that no one was expecting,” his father, Ricardo Dutra, said at the funeral, describing Bernardo as “a boy with a big heart who, in his own way, touched everyone around him”.
Firefighters have said that those still missing are unlikely to be found alive.
Periods of heavy rain frequently cause lethal floods in Brazil, where poorer communities and those in improvised structures often find themselves at higher risk.
“We never had support from the public authorities to help us with anything,” Flavio Clemente Rodrigues, a resident of Juiz de Fora, told The Associated Press news agency.
Mayor Margarida Salomao of Juiz de Fora said that at least 20 landslides in the area have occurred since the rain began on Monday, and Brazilian meteorological authorities have warned that more rain is still expected in the coming days.
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