The last body is found and there are already 128 dead in northeast Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The body of the last person who was missing due to landslides and floods in the northeastern Brazilian State of Pernambuco was located this Friday, June 3, just as the rains intensified again and keep that region of the country on alert.

In the midst of incessant rain, which returned with force in the early hours of this Friday, relief agencies found the body of Mercia Josefa Nascimento, 43 years old; she was the only person who was missing, so the number of fatalities from the tragedy was closed, so far, at 128.

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A trained rescue dog located the body among the rubble and mud that buried the house where the woman and other people lived in Jardim Monte Verde, a humble neighborhood in the municipality of Jaboatão dos Guararapes and bordering Recife, the capital.

Most of the dead lived in Jardim Monte Verde, which had several points where the ravines surrounding the neighborhood collapsed and a stream overflowed its banks.

The rains in Pernambuco began on June 22, but intensified on the 28th, when the tragedy occurred in Jardim Monte Verde.

In total, 51 municipalities were affected, most of them in the Recife metropolitan region, which also registered deaths in Camaragibe, Paulista and the historic city of Olinda.

According to the latest count from the regional Civil Defense, Pernambuco adds 9,302 victims, who lost their homes and are in 111 makeshift shelters in schools, sports arenas and churches in 27 cities, which along with four others remain in a state of emergency in the face of the increase in rainfall.

Since Saturday, relief agencies, Army, Police, ministries and local secretariats have mobilized to care for the survivors of the tragedy and restore public services.

Groups of volunteers have also organized themselves to collect and deliver food and supplies, as the Colombian community living in Recife does daily with donations.

Other States, such as Alagoas, Sergipe and Maranhão, which are part of the territorial division known as the Northeast Region, also suffer from the rain.

This 2022 is being especially tragic in Brazil, with thousands of evacuees and hundreds of fatalities due to strong storms in the States of Bahia (northeast), Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro (southeast) and now Pernambuco.

In the city of Petrópolis alone, in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, an intense storm left some 240 dead last February.

Various specialists have linked these extreme weather events with the presence of natural phenomena such as La Niña and the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ), whose greater intensity could be linked to climate change.

With information from La República