This is the moment a father of five was found alive under the rubble after a landslide crushed two homes in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador on Wednesday.
Dramatic footage showed Adriano dos Santos, 30, sticking the top half of his body through the rubble as residents of the Saramandaia neighborhood rushed to pull him out.
Dos Santos had walked into his house to retrieve an umbrella when it collapsed around 9:00 am local time.
He was pulled from the rubble around 4pm local time and taken to the State General Hospital, where he was treated for a pelvic displacement, Brazilian news channel Correio reported.
The fire brigade attributed the collapse to heavy rain that fell in Bahia since the weekend, especially in Saramandaia and the nearby Pernambués district.
The city recorded 30.5 inches of rain in the first 27 days of November, including 23.5 inches of rain last week. The previous monthly average was only 4.3 inches.
The landslide destroyed the home of Dos Santos’ neighbors and trapped a family of three.
The first person rescued was six-year-old Marcelo Heitor around 12:30 p.m. The boy suffered a fractured pelvis and was airlifted to Subúrbio Hospital.
Adriano dos Santos was trapped under rubble for seven and a half hours after his home was crushed by a landslide that also destroyed his neighbors’ home in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador on Wednesday.
First responders were able to rescue three people from two houses that were leveled by a landslide on Wednesday morning in Salvador, a city in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Authorities attributed the landslide to heavy rainfall in the city since last week
His mother, Diane Andrade, 33, who runs a barbershop from the residence, was rescued around 4:30 p.m. and taken by ambulance to Bahia State General Hospital, where she underwent leg surgery.
First responders were unable to locate Andrade’s eldest son, Paulo Andrade, 18, who was about to walk out of the home to go to work when the house collapsed on him.
Fire Department Lt. Col. Jadilson Merces, who is leading the search efforts, told Correio they have focused on the area where the living room is located on the property, where he was last seen by his family.
“We continued the same search that was conducted yesterday, in the same rooms of the house,” Merces said.
“There was progress as we were able to reach some rooms, but there are still rooms to be cleared of all the rubble and mud that has built up there.”
Orlean de Souza, 30, was removing water from his home when he saw the roof of the Andrade residence collapse.
‘I saw the dike going down layer by layer. When it collapsed, it took all the houses underneath with it,” he said.
‘There was a parking lot up there, but there were no cars there at the time. For a moment I thought I could make it all the way here.’
Rescuers resumed the search Thursday for Paulo Andrade, who is trapped in a house destroyed by a landslide in Salvador, Brazil on Wednesday morning
Paramedics airlifted six-year-old Marcelo Heitor to an area hospital where he was treated for a broken pelvis
Brazilian aid workers resumed the search Thursday for Paulo Andrade, who was about to leave his home from work when it collapsed in a landslide. Andrade’s mother and younger brother were rescued