By Daniel Castellano with Lucia Lacurcia in Rio de Janeiro, AFP<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nNereu Sabadini sits on the debris of his house destroyed by a tornado.
\nPhoto: AFP\/SUPPLIED\n<\/p>\n
A tornado has killed at least six people and injured about 750, as it destroyed most of a town in southern Brazil.<\/p>\n
The twister flipped cars like toys and wrecked buildings in Rio Bonito do Iguacu, a town of 14,000 people in Parana state.<\/p>\n
The storm lasted only minutes, but hit with ferocious winds swirling at up to 250km\/h. Aerial photos showed the town largely obliterated, with wrecked buildings and debris everywhere.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, traumatised residents sifted through the rubble of their homes, as they tried to salvage some belongings.<\/p>\n
Nereu Sabadini was working outside of town, when the tornado hit.<\/p>\n
“I arrived home and found myself without a roof over my head,” the 51-year-old told AFP. “I’m homeless and rebuilding will take some time.”<\/p>\n
Authorities said 90 percent of the town suffered damage.<\/p>\n
“It destroyed everything,” Roselei Dalcandon said, as she stood by a pile of rubble that used to be her shop. “It destroyed the town, houses, schools.<\/p>\n
“What will become of us?”<\/p>\n
The tornado killed at least six people, the Parana state government said. Firefighters and medical personnel treated 750 injured people, including nine who were seriously hurt.<\/p>\n
One person was missing, but the number could rise, as rescue efforts continue.<\/p>\n
Rescue teams searched through piles of rubble, looking for survivors or bodies. A shelter was set up in a nearby town.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nHeavy machinery cleans up the debris caused by the tornado that hit Rio Bonito do Iguacu.
\nPhoto: AFP\/SUPPLIED\n<\/p>\n
“It is a war scene,” Fernando Schunig, head of the Parana Civil Defence agency, told the news outlet G1.<\/p>\n
He said the likelihood of more fatalities was high, because the twister hit the centre of the town.<\/p>\n
“When these events hit an urban area, the damage is major,” Schunig said. “It is very lethal.”<\/p>\n
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said a team of ministers and disaster relief experts were headed to the town, as he expressed “solidarity” with those affected.<\/p>\n
An alert for dangerous storms was in effect for all of Parana, as well as Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, according to weather authorities.<\/p>\n
Other cities in Parana and neighbouring states were also hit by strong winds, storms and hail from a violent weather pattern sweeping through the region.<\/p>\n
Last year, southern Brazil suffered severe flooding that left more than 200 people dead and two million displaced in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.<\/p>\n
It was one of the worst natural disasters in the recent history of Brazil and experts say global warming played a role in the floods.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Daniel Castellano with Lucia Lacurcia in Rio de Janeiro, AFP Nereu Sabadini sits on the debris of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[48,47,273,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-125891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-podcasts","16":"tag-public-radio","17":"tag-radio-new-zealand","18":"tag-rnz","19":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}