A building under construction collapsed onto a house in the early hours of Saturday (12) on Rua Tequici, in the Penha district of eastern São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, killing two women, one of them pregnant. The fire department confirmed the two deaths, and six more people were still being searched for under the rubble, according to news site G1.
The structure came down at around 2 a.m., after residents reported hearing a loud boom. Firefighters pulled a 7-year-old child and a man of about 30 from the debris with injuries, and both were taken to an emergency clinic in Tatuapé. By around 10 a.m., 59 firefighters and 21 vehicles were working the scene, state news agency Agência Brasil reported, and the civil defense authority sealed off a neighboring property.
The permit and the court record
The city government said it took the case to court in 2021 to demolish a structure it deemed irregular on the lot, after inspections by the Penha subprefecture, and won an injunction halting the works. The developer filed a new project in 2022 and received an execution permit in August 2023, on condition that the entire previous structure be demolished. An inspection in February 2024 reportedly confirmed the demolition, and the court case was closed. In other words, the building held a valid permit when it fell.
São Paulo State Governor Tarcísio de Freitas said on Saturday that there are signs of irregularities in the building that collapsed, newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported. Speaking to the paper about the storms battering the state, the governor said:
"Our objective now is to help people. We are sending humanitarian aid at this first moment and surveying the damage so we can plan a later phase, of recovery."
Tarcísio cited 160 people displaced and 23 left homeless across the state, and said authorities remain on "maximum alert", with intermittent rain forecast through Monday (14).
Cause under investigation
The civil defense authority said the cause of the collapse still has to be investigated, and that at this point it cannot be blamed solely on the overnight rains. The same storm soaked the city that night, with flooding that shut down the Tietê river expressway toward Castello Branco, according to G1.