Brazil’s first responders cling to hope as deadly floods and landslides bury towns | CBC Radio

Raphael Brito is just hoping the rain will stop.

The captain of the Sao Paulo Firefighter Department has spent the last three days with his colleagues searching for flood survivors in southeastern Brazil, where landslides have buried homes and cut off highways. 

But the relentless rain, he says, is hampering their efforts, and people are getting desperate.

“It’s the worst scenario I’ve ever seen in my career,” Capt. Brito told As It Happens host Nil Köksal from the rescue command centre in Sao Sebastiao, one of the worst hit towns.

The city of 91,000 has faced the brunt of the impact, with 45 of the 46 fatalities recorded so far.

“The houses are destroyed. The main highway is totally destroyed. There are a lot of people out of their houses. The water supply and the electricity is missing. And there’s a lot of people missing,” Brito said. “So it’s really, really sad at the moment.”

Massive rainfalls over the weekend have caused landslides and flooding in coastal towns in the southeast of the country. Almost 2,500 people are still displaced or homeless, the Sao Paulo state government said in a statement.

The flooding also coincided with the annual Carnival holiday, which brings throngs of tourists to the country’s beaches.

Brito said that, as of Tuesday, first responders were aware of about 36 people still missing.

His team, he says, is using pre-flood photographs of the area to pinpoint where houses once stood, and then search the mud and rubble for survivors.

“It’s already about three days, and we are talking to their relatives and we’re trying to get them hope,” he said. “We really want to find them alive, although it’s really hard — but we keep [up] our work.”

With roads washed out and rain pounding down on the mud and rubble, the rescue operations are slow going. 

Since the weekend, the area was hit by more than 600 millimetres of rain, which the government said was the highest cumulative figure ever in Brazil.

And it doesn’t look likely to let up anytime soon. The Sao Sebastiao government said that by Friday, another 200 millimetres are expected to hit the region, which means more floods and landslides are possible. 

Brito says first responders are focused on finding missing people and delivering aid via helicopter to the thousands who are stranded in shelters set up at schools and gymnasiums.

The floods in coastal Sao Paulo state were the latest in a series of such disasters to recently strike Brazil, where shoddy construction, often on hillsides, can have tragic consequences during the country’s rainy season. 

More than 200 people were killed by mudslides and floods in the city of Petropolis near Rio de Janeiro roughly a year ago, followed by deadly floods in the states of Santa Catarina and Bahia in December 2022.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva flew over Sao Sebastiao alongside cabinet ministers on Monday, pledging to rebuild the town by constructing new houses in safer places.

Sao Paulo state Gov. Tarcísio de Freitas said the navy would build a field hospital for victims starting on Thursday.

“There will be up to 300 beds in the infirmary, with orthopedic, clinical, trauma and psychiatric professionals,” Freitas said.

Brito says rescuers are doing their best to stay focused and not lose hope.

He says there have been moments over the last three days that give them the fuel to keep doing — like when they successfully rescued a woman and her newborn baby by helicopter in the flood’s early hours.

“It’s really, really comfort[ing] when we can … rescue people alive,” he said. 

“We are trying to do our best, but we are really hoping for a bit of luck and … clear weather, and to make the things a little better.”