Perilous
Times
Fire destroys Rio's Samba City ahead of Pagan Carnival
A large fire has destroyed Samba City, a part of Rio de Janeiro
where costumes and floats for the city's world famous carnival are
being made.
2:49PM GMT 07 Feb 2011
The disaster occurred just about a month before this year's
carnival was due to begin.
"We are heartbroken," said Jorge Castanheria, president of the
League of Samba Schools. "Everything was practically ready for the
carnival."
He said he was not certain workers would be able to rebuild
everything that was lost before the popular event.
A large plume of smoke was seen over the Sambadrome where the
annual carnival parade takes place.
The fire reportedly erupted well before shop employees were due at
work, and no victims have been reported so far.
An estimated 500,000 to 700,000 foreign tourists attended the
festivities in Brazil last year.
Carnival in flames: fire destroys samba warehouses
By JULIANA BARBASSA
The Associated Press
Monday, February 7, 2011; 11:46 AM
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Rio de Janeiro's world-famed Carnival went up in
flames Monday for thousands of people who spent nearly a year
preparing for the spectacular event.
Seamstresses, set designers and musicians watched in tears as
firefighters struggled to control a blaze that raged through
warehouses holding many of the elaborate costumes and floats they
had assembled for this year's samba parade.
With just a month left before the March 6 start of the
competition, there is no way to fully replace them.
"Do you know what it feels like to work all day, into the night,
to make this happen, and then this?" asked Graziela Goncalves
Carvalho, a seamstress with Uniao da Ilha do Governador, one of
the groups that appeared to have suffered heavy losses. "It's
over. There's nothing. This Carnival is over for us."
Three hours after the fire, 120 firefighters had controlled the
flames that appeared to have severely damaged warehouses belonging
to three of the samba organizations that compete in the two-day
parade, as well as Independent League of Samba Groups that
organizes the event, according to Dimas de Almeida Neto, spokesman
for Rio's fire department.
The cause was being investigated, he said.
There were no initial reports of serious injuries or deaths,
although some workers were in the warehouses when the fire started
just before 7 a.m. The municipal health department confirmed one
30-year-old man was admitted to a downtown hospital after inhaling
smoke, but is recovering.
Even before the flames were out, it was clear that four of the
four-story warehouses were extensively damaged, with two of them
collapsing internally, according to firefighters. Ten warehouses
were not affected by the flames.
Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, who plays in one samba group's percussion
section, promised the city would help the groups recover and vowed
that the Carnival parades would go on.
"These people will put on a great Carnival, and will show the
energy and the optimism that Rio has," he said.
Paes has no control over the independent samba competition, but he
said he hoped that groups hit by the fire would not risk being
demoted. Under a football-style league system, low-scoring samba
groups can be dropped into a lesser league for the coming year.
Even with help, rebuilding an entire year's worth of work is not
possible in a month, he said.
"They won't be in any condition to compete," Paes said.
Still, many were already trying to bounce back.
"I've cried a lot over this, and now it's time to think about what
can be saved," said Roberto Szaniecki, the theme developer for
Portela group as he hugged friends. "But I want to make this
clear: we're going to get out there. We've got a Carnival to put
on."
The most heavily affected group appeared to be Grande Rio. It
apparently lost the entire contents of its parade: eight
complicated floats and 3,000 elaborately embroidered costumes,
said their spokesman, Avelino Ribeiro.
This year's show was a $5.5 million investment, he said. About
7,000 people worked for about eight months to pull it all
together, and the parade was ready to go, he said.
Grande Rio also lost much of its infrastructure: workshop
machinery, the metal structure of the floats and computers. But
the group will make an appearance, in spite of the blow, he said.
"There are a lot of people who spend the year dreaming and working
for this, for their moment to go out there and shine," he said.
"You can't take that away from them. The material things are gone,
but we still have a samba to sing."