The tired speech, calloused hands, and mud-soiled clothes reflect the tiredness of the people who have been trying to survive rain for almost a week. "Everything is gone" and "lost everything" are the most heard phrases in Iconha, an hour and a half from Vitória (ES).
The municipality suffered the most when the rains that overtook the southern region of Espírito Santo on Friday night (17), leaving seven people dead, one missing and more than 3,000 homeless. It is in a state of public calamity, along with Alfredo Chaves, Rio Novo do Sul and Vargem Alta.
"I wanted to wake up and see that everything is a lie," said a woman sitting on the sidewalk. "This became a second Brumadinho," commented another one while the community tries, corner by corner, to remove the liters of water and earth that invaded, turned, and destroyed properties.
The comparison with the mining town hit a year ago by the rupture of the dam makes sense. A flood caused the devastation of Iconha, with 14 thousand inhabitants. The Iconha river, fed by the extremely high level of rain at its head, overflowed its banks.
"The river didn't understand that it wasn't a river here. For him it was all a river ", said accountant Félix Menegueli, 36, pointing to the main street. More people did not die because the "waterfall" came around 8 pm when everyone was still awake.
"In ten minutes, I lost what I built in ten years," lamented radio broadcaster Sheila Cruz, 30. Without tears, she repeats the word "deliverance" to explain the fact that she survived with her 7-year-old daughter because she went up to the third floor of a building, which fell hours later.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon