TERESOPOLIS, Brazil — Fernando Perfista dug out the body of his eldest child from the mud, then searched for the 12-year-old’s three siblings. He sheltered the boy’s remains in a refrigerator to keep dogs at bay.
Unable to find the others, the 31-year-old ranch hand built a gurney of scrap wood, carried his son’s body down a mudslide-wrecked mountain slope before dawn Friday and buried him in a homemade coffin.
Then he waited with a crowd in the rain outside the Teresopolis morgue for a chance to plead with officials for help to continue his search. He clutched plastic-covered pictures of his three other children: a chubby 1-year-old and two smiling girls, ages 6 and 10.
“My children are in there, in that river bank, under that mud,” he said.
Survivors of mudslides that killed at least 537 people this week in a mountainous area north of Rio de Janeiro streamed into the center of Teresopolis on Friday, pleading for their loved ones to be rescued or for their bodies to be recovered.
Many were disheartened by the response. Rescuers resumed efforts after morning rains, but Perfista and others said there clearly were not enough people or resources.
Amauri Souza, a 38-year-old who helped Perfista carry his son’s body, said a few helicopters are reaching remote areas, but “they’re only taking down the wounded.” He said officials were not dropping off body bags, food or water, and he feared the consequences if aid did not arrive soon.
“The water is rotten, but people are forced to drink it,” Souza said. “There is no food. I had meat in my house, but it’s all gone bad.”
Officials fear the death toll could rise once remote areas are reached. Authorities did not offer an estimate on the missing, but local reports put it in the hundreds.
Survivors questioned their government’s efforts before and after torrential rains unleashed the mudslides. A United Nations disaster expert said many of the deaths were avoidable. But local officials have said the deluge unleashed floods and slides of such power that destruction was inevitable.
Margareta Wahlstrom, the United Nations’ assistant secretary-general for disaster risk reduction, said the government should have had an early warning and emergency escape system in place, as well as better communication with poor communities built on steep slopes that are at risk of slides.
