Paulista (Brazil).- At least 5 people died and another 8 remain trapped under the rubble or missing after a residential building collapsed in the Brazilian city of Paulista (northeast), the firefighters reported this Friday.
The Paulista Fire Department, in the metropolitan region of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, confirmed that among the victims is a 43-year-old woman, 3 men, 2 of 21 and another of 45, and a child under 12 years of age. An 18-year-old boy who was rescued alive from the rubble died on the way to the hospital.
According to the authorities of the eight people who are still missing, five are minors.
Rescue work continues at night with the support of trained dogs and debris removal teams.
Two women rescued alive were sent with fractures to a municipal hospital, while four other people, who are not part of the list of 19 occupants of the building and lived in an adjoining property, had minor injuries.
The collapse occurred in the midst of heavy rains that for two weeks have put the metropolitan region of Recife on alert and that this Friday caused other landslides, floods, fallen trees and poles, and several traffic accidents.
The building, in the Beira-Mar popular housing residential complex, had been closed by a court order in 2010 warning of the dangers, but two years later it was occupied again – without authorization – by the owners.
In 2018, an inspection by the Fire Department suggested a new vacancy and on Thursday, a day before the tragedy, an insurer for the state bank that financed the apartments issued a similar account about the dangers of the property.
Last April, six people were crushed to death by debris after another residential building collapsed in the neighboring city of Olinda, also in the Recife metropolitan region.
The collapse occurred in the Leme building, a three-story building in the humble neighborhood of Jardim Atlântico, which also had an eviction order for its residents since 2000 due to the risk of collapse.
