Rebuilding Barra Longa

Some 70 km from the Fundão dam and lying adjacent to the Carmo river, the municipality of Barra Longa and its 6,000 inhabitants was the only municipality to have its town hall directly impacted by the mudslide.

Virtually all of the town’s infrastructure, including homes, stores and public equipment, was recovered in 2016 (see table).

The owner of the pizza restaurant Sinésio Antônio Carneiro, the owner of a small pizzeria, clearly recalls the night the mudslide came.“I had worked until 11 PM at the pizza restaurant on November 6, 2015. I heard that the mudslide had hit the town, but neither I nor anyone else was aware of what was yet to come. We stayed in the square with other residents until 2 o’clock in the morning to see what was going to happen.

That was really dangerous. I went home and the mudslide arrived causing devastation at 4 AM. I lost my refrigerator, freezer, display stand and everything I needed to work at the pizza restaurant”, he recalled. “I see the people from Renova Foundation working to recover the town, but everything is very slow”.

The main works forecast for 2017 involve the reconstruction of the Exhibition Hall, which should be finished in 2018. We have also had to resolve the deadlock regarding the José de Vasconcelos Lanna Municipal School, which is functioning on a provisional site, as the owner of the original property stated that he no longer intends to rent it out to the municipal government. We are currently elevating the football pitch and refurbishing the last homes and stores which still need repairs.