Brazil was hit in this rainy season by particularly severe rainfall.
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Within hours, the picturesque town received more rain than in a typical month of February. At least 78 people have died following heavy rains that caused landslides and floods in the Brazilian tourist city of Petropolis, the governorate of the state of Rio de Janeiro announced on Wednesday.
“We now have 78 confirmed dead and 21 people have been saved”said the governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Claudio Castro, during a press conference, referring to “the worst rains since 1932”.
The balance sheet is likely to increase, the number of missing in the locality of 300,000 inhabitants located 60 km north of Rio, in the south-east of Brazil, not having yet been established.
Brazil has been hit in this rainy season by particularly severe rainfall – also in the states of Bahia (northeast), Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo (southeast) – which experts have linked to global warming. With warming, the risk of heavy rainfall events increases, according to scientists. These rains, associated in particular in Brazil with an often wild urbanization, favor floods and deadly landslides.