Brazil floods: Six children are among eight killed, officials said. (file)
Rio de Janeiro:
Torrential rains caused flash floods and landslides in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, killing at least eight people, including six children, and leaving 13 missing. Officials gave this information on Saturday.
Officials said the storm affected a wide area of the Atlantic coast of the southeastern state and caused several landfalls, killing a mother and her five children in the colonial tourist town of Paraty.
Congressman Marcelo Frexo, representing the state, said two more victims died in the cities of Mesquita and Angra dos Reis, where 13 others are missing.
In Angra, the victim was a four-year-old girl buried in a landslide, while 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the city of Rio de Janeiro, a 38-year-old man was trying to help another man escape. Had been. floods, media reports said.
The state of Rio has been devastated by two days of heavy rain, including a severe storm on Friday night that turned roads into rivers in several cities, causing cars to swoop in their paths and landslides – a constant in the rainy season Tragedy, especially in poor mountain communities.
Angra officials said the city received 655 millimeters (26 in) of rain in 48 hours, which “has never been recorded before in the municipality.”
The storm comes six weeks after flash floods and landslides killed 233 people in Petropolis, also in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
Brazil has been swept away by a series of deadly storms in recent months, experts say are exacerbated by climate change.
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