TERESOPOLIS, Brazil -- As night
fell, barefoot volunteers
dragged a generator and
stadium lights into a town
cemetery, where nearly 200
freshly dug graves lay open
like wounds in the red clay
soil, waiting for some of the
hundreds killed by torrential
rains.
Funerals already had been
held all day as a light rain
persisted Thursday: a sister
laying her brother to rest, a
man burying his 1-year-old
niece in a small white casket,
a mother who cried her 9-
year-old son's name
repeatedly as he was lowered
into the earth.
Small, handmade white
crosses identified only by
numbers - the details would
have to come later - dotted
the desolate, sodden hilltop.
Dozens more funerals will
come Friday and 300 more
graves will be dug Saturday,
said Vitor da Costa Soares, a
city worker in charge of the
cemetery.
"We'll make room. We have
to. We'll stay up here until 10
p.m., midnight if we can, and
we'll be here at 6 a.m.
tomorrow," he said.
At least 476 people were
known dead after heavy rains
unleashed mudslides before
dawn Wednesday, burying
people as they slept. Survivors
started digging for friends and
relatives with their bare
hands, kitchen utensils,
whatever they could find as
they waited for help in remote
neighborhoods perched
precariously on steep,
washed-out hillsides.
In the remote Campo Grande
neighborhood of Teresopolis,
now accessible only by a
perilous five-mile (eight-
kilometer) hike through mud-
slicked jungle, family
members pulled the lifeless
bodies of loved ones from the
muck. They carefully laid the
corpses on dry ground,
covering them with blankets.
A young boy cried out as his
father's body was found: "I
want to see my dad! I want to
see my dad!"
Flooding and mudslides are
common in Brazil when the
summer rains come, but this
week's slides were among the
worst in recent memory. The
disasters punish the poor, who
often live in rickety shacks
perched perilously on steep
hillsides with little or no
foundations. But even the rich
did not escape the damage in
Teresopolis, where large
homes were washed away.
"I have friends still lost in all
of this mud," said Carlos
Eurico, a resident of Campo
Grande, as he motioned to a
sea of destruction behind him.
"It's all gone. It's all over now.
We're putting ourselves in the
hands of God."
In the same area, Nilson
Martins, 35, carefully held the
only thing pulled out alive
since dawn: a pet rabbit that
had somehow remained
pristinely white despite the
mud.
"We're just digging around,
there is no way of knowing
where to look," he said.
"There are three more bodies
under the rubble over there.
One seems to be a girl, no
more than 16, dead, buried
under that mud."
Source: Http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011400926.html
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