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Know what to do in case of rain and risk of landslides in urban areas

With the rain crisis in Brazil, the risk of landslides becomes one of the main insecurities for residents of urban regions. The superintendent of Civil Defense of Rio de Janeiro, Lauro Botto Maia, gives indications on how to act in the face of storms in risk regions.

For these locations, the Civil Defense usually has a warning system. “The moment you hear sirens beeping, leave your homes,” he said.

He said that, in Rio de Janeiro, the agency trains the population for moments like this, to facilitate the evacuation of the population from areas at risk in the face of storms.

Last Saturday, a slope gave way in the city of Rio Bonito, in the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, but there were no casualties. Last weekend, the rains caused at least 90 occurrences across the state. The Serrana, North and Northwest regions.

With the persistent rain since Thursday (5), the risks of landslides in the city increase, despite the reduced strength of precipitation compared to other regions of the country.

“We always work with the worst possible scenario, unfortunately,” said the Civil Defense member, but warned that the rain situation in the city was not serious. Even so, there are always risks, mainly because of irregular occupation in some areas, and because of the geographic characteristics of the city.

The Civil Defense of Rio and other cities also provide a telephone number to receive alerts about storms and other risks related to the weather forecast.

“Stay tuned for civil defense alerts,” said the superintendent. In Rio de Janeiro, “the number 40199 is used for ordinary citizens to send their SMS with their zip code to receive alerts”, he added.

On the part of the public authorities, the first initiative should be the mapping of risk areas in order to act assertively. “We have all these areas mapped,” said Maia.

This mapping is used to carry out previous initiatives that avoid the installation of families in dangerous regions or that train people to act quickly in the face of a risk situation. “We try to do the work outside of the rainy season. That’s why we haven’t had this kind of tragedy in Rio de Janeiro for years,” he says.

In the event that the residence shows signs that it may be giving way under the force of landslides and floods, he recommended that the property be abandoned “immediately”.

“Under any sign of a crack, you heard the cracking of the masonry of the house, leave the house immediately, and look for one of the support points. If there is no support point, look for a safe place”, he warned.

Reference: CNN Brasil

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