The waters of the Jucuruçu River, which cuts through the urban area of Itamaraju (661 km from Salvador), began to recede. This Monday (13) hundreds of families started to return to their homes after days of anguish with the worst storm in the last 35 years in the extreme south of Bahia. In the Várzea Alegre neighborhood, which is in a lower part of the city, a group of women returned to sit on the banks of the dark waters of the river to wash, piece by piece, everything they had managed to rescue from their homes. On the horizon, the bridge that crossed the river was partially collapsed. In the houses, there was almost no furniture left.
Refrigerators, cupboards and dozens of mattresses were waiting to be collected and discarded at the doors of the houses in the flooded streets of the neighborhood . Inside, the rank smell of mud lingered no matter how much the floor was washed.
On this day in Itamaraju neighbors collected debris, accounted for damages and shared anxieties about the future. The storm, which began in the extreme south and spread to other regions of the interior of Bahia, has already left a toll of ten dead, 51 cities in emergency situations, and 21.570 people homeless. According to Civil Defense data from the State of Bahia released this Monday (13), more than 200 thousand people were affected in some way by storms in the state.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon