Sixteen die in street parade ahead of Brazil’s carnival

A high-voltage electric powerline crashed atop a float, killing at least 16 people participating in a parade ahead of Brazil’s Carnival cele­brations, health officials said yesterday.

The 7,000 cable short-circuited late on Sunday when it came tumbling down over a metallic coil, causing multiple deaths and injuries in the town of Bandeiro do Sul in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, the O Globo and Estado de Sao Paulo newspapers reported.

At least 12 people who were on the float died on the spot from the shock, firefighters said.

“It was a disaster,” local health official Jose Balducci told O Globo.

“There were many people (in the float) and we don’t know for sure the number of deaths. Injuries range from mild to severe.”

Calls to Bandeiro do Sul officials were not immediately returned.

It was the second major accident to befall street parades leading up to Brazil’s Carnival this month.

Earlier this month, a 21-year-old woman fell to her death while dancing on a musical float during a practice run in Rio de Janeiro.

And a devastating fire on February 7 in the Samba City complex of workshops and warehouses dedicated to the annual Carnival spectacular wiped out eight months of preparations worth millions of dollars for samba schools putting on the extravagant parades.

As a result, the two groups worst hit, Grande Rio and Uniao da Ilha, are trying to hastily stitch together new floats and costumes in time.

Street parades known as blocos de rua, washed down with much beer, are traditional ahead of Rio’s Carnival on March 6-7, the biggest and most spectacular of those taking place across Brazil.

The festivities attract hundreds of thousands of tourists and a global television audience for its extravaganza of scantily clad dancing queens and fantastic costumes.