Related News
Accident mars start of renowned carnival
Print Edition
A huge float carried by an out-of-control truck struck at least 20 people celebrating carnival in Rio de Janeiro, causing serious injuries at the start of an all-night dance-off on Sunday.
The truck was at the tail end of the Paraiso do Tuiuti samba school parade in the city’s Sambadrome when the accident occurred. It drove too close to a fence at the entrance to the competition piste, leaving several people unable to escape.
Three were seriously injured, including a woman news photographer who had a leg badly crushed.
The truck was topped with one of the extravagant floats that symbolize the world’s most famous carnival.
Of the 20 people injured in the accident “eight were sent to hospital in ambulances,” including three severely injured women, the health secretary of Rio de Janeiro’s office said.
But despite the casualties and pools of blood on the rain spattered ground, the party soon got back in swing.
Brazilians living through two years of steep recession and nearly 13 percent unemployment have grasped this year’s carnival as a chance to let off steam. In Rio especially, the thrill of hosting the Olympics six months ago has given way to the grim reality of rising crime and near bankruptcy of the state government.
There were intense cheers around the packed stadium of 70,000 people the moment that drumming began to thunder up from the piste.
Samba queens dressed in sequined micro-costumes and vast feathered headdresses danced at dizzying speed. Behind them came armies of drummers and costumed dancers, interspersed by the floats. Each school picks a theme for its parade and is judged according to strict criteria.
The most daring parade was from the samba school known as Imperatriz Leopoldinense, which chose the destruction of Brazil’s majestic Amazon rainforest as its theme.
Schools typically pick politically safe themes, but Imperatriz Leopoldinense waded into the debate over indigenous rights, agribusiness expansion into once pristine lands, and the future of the ever more under pressure Amazon.
Floats included portrayals of the jungle, indigenous musicians, piles of skulls and a giant head of a crying indigenous man, crushed by a log the size of a bus.
Tourism officials said that as many as 1.5 million tourists descended on Rio, the best result in eight years, injecting US$960 million into the economy.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
