Brazil: Heavy rains leave 138 cities in emergency in Minas Gerais

A heavy rainstorm continued to hit the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, in the southeast of the country, where at least 138 cities are in an emergency situation due to floods, landslides and damage to infrastructure.

Since the beginning of the rainy period, last October, until this Sunday, at least six deaths have been registered and about 17,000 evacuated from their homes due to the intense rainfall that is raging in the region, according to Civil Defense.

The Brazilian authorities are also investigating the death of two other people during this weekend and that everything indicates that they also occurred as a result of the storm.

The last fatality was a 42-year-old woman who died when a house collapsed in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, which is the second most populous state in Brazil, with some 21.5 million inhabitants, just behind Sao Paul.

In the midst of this strong storm in Minas Gerais, a serious accident took place on Saturday in Furnas Lake, when the detachment of a huge rocky wall from a canyon fell on four boats, leaving ten dead and thirty injured. , most mild.

However, Civil Defense reported that the deaths from that tragedy were not included in the balance of victims of the rains until the open investigations into the case are concluded.

Also on Saturday, a dam of a mine belonging to the French company Vallourec overflowed this Saturday in the town of Nova Lima, causing the cut-off of the highway that connects Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro and the evacuation of six residents of the area.

The incident also left a wounded man who had to be hospitalized, although he is out of danger.

As a precaution, the National Mining Agency (ANM) determined the suspension of the activities of the mine due to the risk of collapse of the dam that overflowed.

The state of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, also suffered heavy rains between November and December that killed at least 24 people, left dozens of cities under water and forced nearly 100,000 people from their homes.