Brazil: a strong storm in São Paulo has left 12 dead and paralyzed the city

The chaos of what happened in San Pablo after the heavy rains that fell Sunday night and lasted very early in the morning, killing at least 12 people.

The severe weather conditions that affected San Pablo and the metropolitan area, known as Big ABC (Santo André, São Bernardo and São Caetano do Sul), early Monday morning left a trail of floods, at least 54 landslides. field and 155 fallen trees. Firefighters attended nearly 700 flood-related incidents.

According to Civil Protection, four of the dead were dragged by the waters and drowned on the border of the capital, São Caetano do Sul. A motorcyclist also drowned in São Bernardo do Campo. In Santo André, another person ended up drowned. The storm also claimed the life of a baby who was with his parents when his house in Embu das Artes was buried by the earth. The firefighters helped him in the rubble and he was transferred alive to the Geral Hospital of Itapecerica da Serra, where he died shortly thereafter. Relatives of the child have suffered minor injuries and are in good condition.

The Marginal Tietê, one of the central streets of the megalopolis, woke up paralyzed and many pbadengers had to walk long to get to their destination. In a hurry, they tried to get in touch with their loved ones, their colleagues and their leaders to explain the reason for the delay. Others took pictures of the bottleneck to possibly use them as evidence. "How is it possible that São Paulo, Brazil's largest and richest city, can not stand a rain without causing trouble?", Asked many people.

Mayor Bruno Covas (Brazilian Social Democrat Party, PSDB) was absent from the town hall for a week for personal reasons – he did not specify which – and handed the witness to the president of the municipal chamber, Eduardo Tuma, of his own party. At a press conference, the acting mayor described the chaos caused by the storm as "unpredictable" and "extraordinary".

"No preventive action could fix what happened today," he said. San João Doria, governor of San Pablo, flew over the flooded areas and created a crisis cabinet to closely monitor the damage to the capital and the metropolitan area. "I convey my full solidarity to the families affected by the heavy rains, and our main concern now is to protect lives," said the PSDB policy officer. Bruno Covas said on his Twitter profile that he would return to the city on Monday. "Until today, it has rained more than the expected 90% for more than March," said the mayor.

Source: El País