The search for the last missing after the floods and landslides near Recife (northeast) has been completed, the Pernambuco state government announced on Friday, a week after the disaster that killed 128 people.
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“Today we are stopping the search for the missing,” state governor Paulo Camara said in a statement after the body of the last missing person, a woman, was discovered in the morning.
“We express our solidarity with the relatives of the 128 victims and decree a three-day mourning,” continues the governor.
The authorities have released financial aid for families in emergency situations. More than 9,000 people in the Recife region lost their homes and had to be accommodated in reception structures after the disaster that struck at the end of May.
Brazil is particularly affected this year by deadly floods and landslides. A similar tragedy left 233 dead in Petropolis, near Rio de Janeiro (southeast), in February.
Natural disaster specialist José Marengo told AFP that the exceptional rainfall was due to global warming, the effects of which are aggravated by uncontrolled urbanization, which is widespread in Brazil.
“Rain itself does not kill. What is deadly is the rain on homes located in risk areas, “said the research coordinator of the National Center for Monitoring and Warning of Natural Disasters in Brazil (CEMADEN).
According to him, the authorities are “guilty” of having “allowed construction in areas at risk, where poor populations live who have nowhere to go”.
