After resuming work on Lake Furnas this morning, the members of the Minas Gerais Fire Department found the bodies of the last three disappeared and finally the number of fatalities rose to ten following the fall of the rocky wall of a canyon on some boats in Brazil. In addition, there are 32 injured.
According to the testimony of Major Rodrigo Castro, commander of the Fire Department, one of the bodies found this morning corresponds to a man who was under water. Currently the Civil Police is carrying out the identification of the bodies, although there are no more missing people.
In addition to the firefighters, the Navy, rescue divers and the Police participated in an operation that demanded more than 60 agents to provide assistance in the tragedy, which occurred around noon on Saturday in the tourist municipality of Capitólio, in the state of Minas. Gerais (southeast).
A video circulating on social networks shows the moment when the huge rock detaches itself from the canyon wall and rushes on four boats that were in the Furnas lake.
In another recording, moments before the disaster, the affected vessels are observed. trying to get away from the canyon wall, amid the warnings and shouts of the people in the surrounding ships.
At first the firefighters reported that there were 20 missing, although as the hours went by they contacted the people who were present in the boats at the time of the fall. The vast majority of those injured had minor injuries, but four are still hospitalized, according to authorities.
Firefighters suspect that heavy rainfall in recent days in the region put pressure on the canyon walls, which may have caused the landslide.
The spokesman for the Minas Gerais Fire Department, Pedro Aihara, explained on Saturday, in statements to the ‘GloboNews’ channel, that this region of canyons is made up of sedimentary rocks “more susceptible to the actions of wind and rain” and, therefore, Therefore, they “have less resistance” to inclement weather.
The place where the accident occurred is a very touristic point of Capitólio, a city located regarding 280 kilometers from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, and famous for its natural beauties and its impressive gorges, which can be visited through boat trips.
In another point of Minas Gerais, The heavy rains also caused the overflow of a dam of the French steel company Vallourec on Saturday that forced to cut the highway that connects Belo Horizonte with Rio de Janeiro, without fatalities having been registered.
According to the Folha de San Pablo newspaper, Marcos de Souza Pimenta, Passos regional delegate, stated that “it would be premature to hold someone responsible for an accident of this magnitude” and says that now the focus is on identifying the accident victims.
Pimenta claims that the bodies are badly damaged due to the accident. At the moment, only a 68-year-old retiree, a 14-year-old teenager and his father have been formally identified.
Source: EFE
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