Landslide in Brazil's ancient capital

In Brazil, at least 27 people have been killed by landslides in Petropolis about 40 miles to the north of Rio de Janeiro.  The city was named after Emperor Pedro II, who ruled Brazil from 1831 to 1889, and was once the country’s capital.

The landslides hit Petropolis when a river burst its banks after some areas got more than a month’s normal rainfall in just 24 hours.  Brazil’s president suggested that some people had ignored warnings to get out of threatened areas.  

The same region was hit by a series of deadly floods and mudslides precipitated by heavy rain in 2011, when more than 900 people were killed in Petropolis and four other cities.     It is reported that promises by the authorities to invest in better prevention measures had not been kept.

*Landslides and mudslides are among the things that will be featured in my new book – Flood. Nature and Culture.   Here is the first internet whisper about it. (I didn’t write the blurb about the Old Testament.)  http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo16826611.html

Lebanon air crash - aircraft and bad weather

In the first major air crash of 2010, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 has gone into the sea soon after taking off from Beirut airport bound for Addis Ababa. There were 82 passengers on board and 8 crew. No survivors have so far been found.

The weather had been stormy, and eye witnesses spoke of seeing a ball of fire in the sky before the aircraft crashed. The Lebanese President has said it is unlikely that foul play was involved. Ethiopian Airlines is considered to have a good safety record, but a similar 737 from Kenya Airways crashed in Cameroon at the cost of 114 lives after also taking off in heavy rain and thunderstorms in 2007.

Last year’s worst air accident, the loss of an Air France Airbus A330 over the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, also happened in poor weather. (See my blog of June 20, 2009). It was the deadliest air crash in eight years, as all 228 people on board were killed.

The cause of the accident remains a mystery, not helped by the fact that it has proved impossible so far to find the aircraft’s flight recorders. The search will resume next month.