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LATIN AMERICA |
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1,000 People
Lose Homes in Brazil Shantytown Fire
SAO PAULO – About 1,000 people lost their
homes and four were overcome by smoke
inhalation when a fire burned through a “favela,”
or shantytown, in Sao Paulo, Brazilian media
reported Monday.
Some 350 families lost their dwellings in
less than three hours as the fire destroyed
the wooden structures.
The blaze started late Sunday afternoon and
some 70 firefighters who responded were
unable to bring it under control until
around 10:00 p.m.
Sao Paulo state police launched an
investigation of the fire and searched some
of the people left homeless by the blaze.
A fire department captain told the O Globo
newspaper that the fire was likely caused by
a short-circuit in one of the illegal
electric hook-ups common in the shantytowns.
Television stations broadcast images of the
devastation caused by the fire, which
cleared the land on which the dwellings sat,
leaving a desolate landscape behind. EFE
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