Torrents in Brazil

[jackhammer91406]

This morning's paper is filled with stories about torrential rains in BZ. If there are any hoovilleites currently down there, please check in and let us know you are ok. Paper describes mudslides within a few miles of Rio.

[BillyZ]

Really? That is sure a surprise to me.

 

I didn't see even light showers yesterday

(but then I'm can probably address sauna

humidity better than outdoor humidity in Rio).

 

This morning in Rio was cloudless and clear.

Sky was the deepest blue I've seen here all week.

 

p.s.

To any M4M guys in Rio now, e-mail me if you want

to get together for a drink or city explorations.

[jackhammer91406]

Billy,

Glad to hear it. Maybe mountains surrounding Rio kept some of the storm away. Papers describe mudslides somewhere 10 miles outside of RIO. Don't know the geography, but glad to hear weather down there is good. I read somewhere that like a bomb shelter, the saunas are the best place to weather a storm.

[trilingual]

In the southern summer there can be torrential afternoon rains in Rio. It usually doesn't affect the tourist parts of town much, except for occasional falling tree limbs or power outages. Being mountainous, there are landslides, like in California. The poorer communities tend to be built on the hillsides in Rio, and the construction is precarious, at best. Sadly, when there are heavy rains there are often landslides, sometimes with tragic consequences. I didn't see anything about landslides in the last day or so, but a big storm hit Angra dos Reis, on the road to Parati, a week or two ago, and something like 30 people lost their lives and some 1500 are homeless because of slides. When you go to Brazil and see the slopes people build on, it's amazing that this doesn't happen more often. In Rio the city does try to do engineering work to shore up the slopes, and also tries to discourage people settling on the most dangerous hills, but it's a never-ending battle in a city with too many people and not enough land.