AUTHORITIES IN Rio de Janeiro say they will use force to remove residents from shantytowns deemed unsafe following torrential rains that triggered landslides and left almost 200 people dead in Brazil’s second-biggest metropolis.
Despite the death toll, which authorities say is set to rise as rescuers pull more bodies from the mud, slum dwellers were resisting efforts to evacuate them in case they were not able to return home later. In one neighbourhood, Prazeres in Rio’s centre, local community leader Lisa Brandão told media that “nobody is going to leave, we will resist”.
But Rio mayor Eduardo Paes told local radio that, with the rains continuing and hillsides covered in shantytowns already soaked, “there exists the determination, not just the advice, but the determination to remove people from areas of risk” and that “if people do not obey police force could be used”.
Some 14,000 people have been forced to leave their homes by the rains, which hit the state on Monday.
Firemen are using heavy machinery in an attempt to remove tonnes of mud which washed through neighbourhoods.
About one-fifth of the 12 million residents in the greater Rio area live in shantytowns, known locally as favelas. Many cling precariously to steep hillsides considered unsuitable for construction.
Though often lacking essential services and plagued by gang violence, many residents are loath to leave them as they are often situated close to commercial and middle-class neighbourhoods where they can find work.
In recent years federal and state governments have sought to “urbanise” favelas by installing basic services rather than removing communities to distant housing projects on the outskirts of the city.
Since Rio was awarded the right to host the 2016 Olympic Games last year, the government has promised to do more to try to improve the lives of favela residents.
The neighbourhood worst hit by the rains was a shantytown built on the site of a rubbish dump in the beachside suburban city of Niterói across Guanabara Bay from Rio.
Dozens of houses were swept away when Bumba Hill gave way on Wednesday night. Residents who survived said they heard small explosions just as the hill collapsed. Authorities say they believe this was methane gas formed by decomposed rubbish.
An estimated 100 houses had been built on the hill of rotting rubbish since the dump’s closure in 1985. In 2004 a study conducted for Brazil’s ministry of cities warned that the area was unsafe, but the city’s government failed to act to relocate those who had moved into the area.
Hours before the main landslide devastated the slum on Bumba, a smaller one partially destroyed one home. But authorities failed to order an evacuation, despite the dozens of landslides striking the rest of the region. So far 17 bodies have been recovered, and rescuers warn there is little hope of finding many alive among the 100 estimated to lie buried in the mud.