"Rain, mudslides kill at least 95 in Brazil" by Associated Press | April 7, 2010
RIO DE JANEIRO — The heaviest rains in Rio de Janeiro’s history triggered landslides yesterday that killed at least 95 people, as rising water turned roads into rivers and paralyzed Brazil’s second-largest city.
Seemingly worth more than a brief, no?
The ground gave way in steep hillside slums, cutting red-brown paths of destruction through shantytowns. Concrete and wooden homes were crushed and hurtled downhill , only to bury other structures....
Eleven inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours, and more rain was expected. Officials said potential mudslides threatened at least 10,000 homes in the city of 6 million people....
Related: Blame it on Rio
God's tears for such a spectacle?
Of course, that is a ridiculous suggestion.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva urged Brazilians to pray for the rain to stop.
Then again.... can't hurt, can it?
“This is the greatest flooding in the history of Rio de Janeiro, the biggest amount of rain in a single day,’’ Silva told reporters in Rio. “And when the man upstairs is nervous and makes it rain, we can only ask him to stop the rain in Rio de Janeiro so we can go on with life in the city.’’
Had he been drinking, or.... (Lula famous for that)?
A representative for the Rio de Janeiro Fire Department, which was coordinating rescue efforts, said 95 people were confirmed dead and 44 had been hospitalized. Most of the victims were from Rio’s hillside shantytowns. “We expect the death toll to rise,’’ said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
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The Globe then skips a day(?).
And the rain kept a-fallin'.
"Up to 200 buried, feared dead in latest mudslide in Brazil; Rain eroded soil under shantytown built on landfill" by Bradley Brooks, Associated Press | April 9, 2010
NITEROI, Brazil — As many as 200 people were buried under tons of mud and feared dead yesterday after a slum built atop a former landfill gave way in the latest deadly landslide to hit metro Rio de Janeiro.
If confirmed, the deaths would raise the toll sharply from the 153 people already known to have died this week in slides triggered by record rains....
The slide that hit late Wednesday was a wall of black earth and garbage about 40 feet high that plowed through the Morro Bumba shantytown before coming to a halt along the edge of a road in Niteroi, a city of about 500,000 across the bay from Rio.
Good Lord, that is worse than a tsunami!
Yesterday, crews with heavy machinery dug through the debris, and about a dozen trucks lined up to haul it off. News broadcasts showed one house on top of the hill with only two walls standing and a bed, a nightstand, and a television inside. Everything else went down with the slide. Residents told local media that a small church, a day-care center, and several business were in the area and probably were buried....
The ground underneath the shantytown — decades of accumulated trash — was especially unstable and vulnerable to the heavy rains, said Agostinho Guerreiro, president of Rio’s main association of engineers and architects....
Guerreiro told Globo TV. “It was a tragedy foretold.’’
The federal government announced an emergency fund of $114 million to help the state deal with the mudslides and flooding....
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They must have gotten it all cleaned up then, and it must have stopped raining because that's the last I have seen of it in the Glob.
And while I'm in Rio:
"Officer in Brazil acquitted in death of Worcester man" by Jay Whearley, Worcester Telegram & Gazette | March 25, 2010
WORCESTER — A Rio de Janeiro police officer was acquitted yesterday in the death of a popular schoolteacher from Worcester who witnesses had said was attempting to prevent the off-duty officer from shooting a young boy who had stolen a purse.
Looks like Brazil's police have the same problems your do, Bay-Staters:
Clearing Killer Cops in Massachusetts
Yeah, turns out the authorities are the same everywhere.
Michael Mershon, press secretary to US Representative James P. McGovern, Democrat of Worcester, said the congressman’s office was notified by Brazilian authorities of the trial’s outcome. The trial began at 3 p.m. Tuesday, and the verdict was delivered at 1 a.m. yesterday.
Joseph Ernest Martin was fatally shot on the night of May 25, 2007, in front of a Rio de Janeiro nightclub, where he and friends were celebrating his 30th birthday. Officer Joao Vicente Oliveira was held briefly after the killing but was back on duty within weeks.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it, readers?
One of Martin’s aunts, Marilyn Martin of Worcester, said the family had been warned by human rights advocates and US State Department officials that a thorough, fair trial was not likely in the case. Still, she said, the rapidity of the trial and the manner in which Rio de Janeiro police conducted their investigation into her nephew’s death has had a numbing effect.
“All along we’ve tried to be respectful of the differences between American and Brazilian cultures,’’ Marilyn Martin said, “but this just leaves us cold.’’
I'm left in the cold over certain things, too.
Also see: The Globe's Wide World of Animals
Frances and Elizabeth Martin, Joseph’s mother and aunt, have been in Rio de Janeiro since March 7 for the trial, which originally was to begin March 9. The trial was rescheduled to Tuesday after a judge and prosecutors learned that police had not interviewed witnesses who disputed Officer Oliveira’s account.
In an e-mail, Elizabeth Martin, who has served as spokeswoman for the family since Joseph’s death, said it was clear to her from listening to defense lawyers during the brief trial that they were attempting to divert attention from the shooting itself to what was termed “American meddling’’ in Brazilian justice.
Mershon said McGovern has scheduled a formal inquiry of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Human Rights that he chairs to question Brazilian criminal justice authorities and others about alleged abuses of police power in their country. The hearing is to start April 22.
Isn't that the height of hypocrisy?
Can you imagine AmeriKan reaction if someone held hearings on, say, our torture of their foreign nationals? Or some police brutality cases in the states? We would be screeching about the nerve of so-and-so.
And I'm wondering how he is going to compel BRAZILIAN AUTHORITIES to TESTIFY in front of the U.S. CONGRESS.
This should be good!
Joseph Martin was born in Worcester and graduated in 1997 from Doherty Memorial High School. He attended Worcester State College, where he taught English as a second language.
His mother still lives in the city.
Friends said a relationship with a young woman from Rio de Janeiro led him to move there in 2005.Oh, I don't want to know anymore.
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See my Brazil label for more reports involving Brazilians that the Globe has printed lately.
