The southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais has been hit by a tragic natural disaster, with local authorities announcing on Tuesday that at least 14 people have been killed and more than 400 displaced as a result of torrential rains that swept through the region, causing massive floods and dangerous landslides.
Details of the disaster in the city of Juiz de Fora
The municipality of Juiz de Fora, one of the hardest-hit areas, reported via its official X account that rescue teams are still searching for an unspecified number of missing persons. These human and material losses resulted from the flooding of local rivers and the saturation of the land, leading to landslides that swept away homes and blocked roads.
In a related context, local Brazilian media reported that approximately 45 people were missing, a figure described by the Minas Gerais state fire department as "preliminary," stressing that the situation remained unclear and it was too early to accurately determine the final death toll due to the difficulty of accessing some of the affected areas.
State of emergency declared and authorities mobilized
The mayor of Juiz de Fora, Margarida Salomão, declared a state of emergency in the city to address the effects of the continuous rainfall. In a press statement, Salomão confirmed that the situation was "extremely serious," noting that some residential areas were now completely cut off from the outside world.
The city has recorded at least 20 landslides in various areas, complicating evacuation and rescue operations. Civil defense and fire crews are working around the clock to clear roads and provide urgent assistance to affected families who have been forced to leave their homes.
Climate context and disaster recurrence in Brazil
These events are occurring within a challenging climate context in Brazil, where official statistics indicate that this February has seen the heaviest rainfall in the history of Juiz de Fora, a city of approximately 540,000 inhabitants. The state of Minas Gerais, with its mountainous geography and rugged terrain, is among the areas most vulnerable to landslides during the summer rainy season.
Brazil has been experiencing increasingly frequent extreme weather events in recent years, which experts link to global climate change and poor urban planning in some of the informal settlements built on hillsides. These seasonal storms in the southeast of the country often result in significant loss of life and severe economic damage, invariably requiring a large-scale federal and local response to mitigate the impact.
