Mudslides causing chaos and death

Mudslides causing chaos and death

It was only about 2 hours into 2010 when the first call came into to rescue personnel that there was a mudslide on the resort island of Ilha Grande in Rio de Janeiro state.

We now know what happened. The mudslide wiped out much of the Pousada Sankay, a cozy, ocean front hotel that was packed full with families ringing in the New Year. Several homes next to the hotel, occupied by vacationers, were also engulfed by mud and massive boulders.

On the mainland, the town of Angra dos Reis, also a highly popular vacation spot for foreign tourists and Brazilians alike, suffered from a devastating mudslide.

As of 23:00 GMT on Saturday, it appears 41 people have died from the two slides, 28 in Ilha Grande and another 13 from Angra dos Reis.

There are an untold number of missing people, with relatives going to the morgue in Rio de Janeiro and going on live local television showing pictures of loved ones they have not heard from since the tragedy.

The human stories of grief are unbearable – the families permanently scarred from the mudslide and all the lives it took with it.

A grandmother from Rio is grieving today. She lost two granddaughters on Ilha Grande, ages 9 and 12. The family rented a home on the island, and apparently had just gone to bed when the loud roar of the mudslide was heard and jarred everyone awake. The two girls apparently did not make it out of the house in time.

A man who has 11 members of his family missing - he says all are likely dead.

The 18-year-old daughter of the owners of Pousada Sankay, who is studying architecture in another state, came back to the small family hotel to spend New Year's with her parents. If the owners of the hotel didn’t have enough to deal with - the loss of life at their establishment - now their daughter is dead.

A 30-year-old mom and her 3-year-old son, passing New Year's together in Angra dos Reis, also killed.

In the coming hours, there will be more tragic stories that surface. These are just a couple snapshots from the first 48 hours.

In Sao Paulo state, less than 100 kilometers from Angra dos Reis in the town of Cunha, 5 people – all from the same house – have died from another mudslide.

And in Sao Luiz do Paraitinga in Sao Paulo state, about 9,000 of the nearly 11,000 townspeople have had to flee their homes and are trapped since the main bridge out of the town is washed out. The town has no electricity, no running water, and no phone service.

And late Saturday night, engineers shutdown the BR-101, the main highway connecting Santos and Rio and one of the two main entry points to Angra in fear of the highway collapsing due to cracks.

The mayor of Angra dos Reis has reportedly asked that Brazil’s two main nuclear power plants, both based in Angra dos Reis, be shutdown until the highway is re-opened.

A complicated New Year's weekend in this part of Brazil. And one many people might want to forget very soon.