At least seven people from the same family were killed and three were injured after a landslide caused two houses to collapse in the northeastern Brazilian city of Pernambuco.
Firefighters arrived at the scene of the accident early on Tuesday where they pulled five bodies from the debris.
Two of the dead women were pulled out from underneath the rubble almost 10 hours after a barrier gave way and crushed the homes in Dois Unidos, a neighborhood in the city of Recife.
According to Brazilian media outlet G1, residents said two water pipes broke approximately at 2am local time, causing the dirt area near the homes to soften up before a landslide crashed on the homes.
The Pernambuco Sanitation Company and the Civil Defense were on site investigating the scene in Recife. The cause of the landslide is yet to be determined.
Rescue workers search through the debris for after a landslide destroyed two homes, including one where seven family members were killed
One of the survivors, Luiz Tadeu Costa, said a similar landslide 10 years ago stopped short of destroying the home he was visiting for the Christmas holidays
Married couple Emanuel Henrique de França (left), 25, and Érica Virginia (center), 19, were found dead along with their two-month-old son, Érick Junior, when a landslide crushed the home where they were staying at in Pernambuco, Brazil, early Tuesday
Lucimar Alves (left) and her granddaughter Daffyne Kauane Alves were sleeping when a slope crumbled apart and crashed down on the granny’s home approximately at 2am local time in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco
Among the dead were married couple Emanuel Henrique de França, 25, and Érica Virginia, 19, were found dead along with their two-month-old son, Érick Junior.
Media outlet O Liberal said they were sleeping in one of the bedrooms when the walls collapsed.
Also killed in the home was Lucimar Alves, 50 and her nine-year-old granddaughter Daffyne Kauane Alves. The bodies of Claudia Bezerra, 47, and Lia de Oliveira, 45, were found by a K-9 rescue unit at 11:48am.
Nine-year-old granddaughter Daffyne Kauane Alves was among the seven victims
Aerial images taken by local media outlets showed how parts of the top of the slope were partly covered with a tarp that stretched out for several yards.
One of the three survivors, Luiz Tadeu Costa, 56, told Jornal AC Online it was the second time in 10 years that the slope’s surface slid down and crashed into the home. However, no one inside the was injured in the previous landslide.
At the time, the Recife Civil Defense constructed a retaining wall, but it did not extend the protective barrier all the way out, and some of the homes were left exposed.
In Tuesday’s landslide, Costa suffered a injury to his foot while his wife, Cristina Gomes da Silva, 57, had a head injury. He was released from hospital later that morning, while da Silva remained under observation where she was listed in stable condition.
‘I woke up to the noise and a wall falling over me and my wife. I asked her to breathe and stay calm until help came,’ Costa said.
Costa was visiting his brother-in-law Otoniel Simião da Silva, 57, to spend Christmas and bring in the new year.
‘He is in shock because he lost his wife. ,’ Costa said. He said Otoniel Simião da Silva, who suffered a shoulder injury, was distraught over the loss of his wife, Lucimar Alves.
At least seven people from the same family were killed and three were injured after a landslide caused two houses to collapse in northeastern Brazilian