Landslides on Rio de Janeiro's hillsides have been responsible for some of the city's greatest tragedies, especially in the city's most vulnerable areas, such as favelas and neighborhoods with self-built settlements lacking State assistance. The GEO Rio document, titled "The 50 Largest Geological-Geotechnical Accidents in the City of Rio de Janeiro," describes in detail the most significant disasters since 1966, which involve not only the loss of lives but also the social impact and the lack of infrastructure and urban planning in the risk areas.
The first, and one of the most striking landslides reported in this collection, took place in 1966, on Rua Santo Amaro, in the Santa Teresa neighborhood, having occurred on January 15, 1966, hitting seven houses and fatally claiming 70 lives. The torrential events, with rains concentrated in a short span of time, turned the unstable soil into a true trap for the families living there. The hillside collapsed at several points, hitting the streets and houses along the base of the hill. The outcome was tragic: dozens of people lost their lives, and the destruction was immense, leaving behind a legacy of insecurity for residents. This episode highlighted the vulnerability of hillside areas and the precariousness of housing conditions in various regions of the city, prompting public authorities to design public policies to address the city's recurring problem.
Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph of a mountainous landscape. On the left side, we see a densely vegetated area, while on the right there is a large rugged rock formation. In the center, there is a road cutting through the hillside, with several white stripes marking its length. In the distance, we see buildings and the silhouette of a mountain. On the horizon, there is a clear sky with a few clouds.Stabilization work following the landslide that caused the death of 70 people in Santa Teresa in 1966.
The following year, nearby, Rua Belizário Távora collapsed along with the hillside slope in another notable rainstorm event. This accident led to the destruction of one house and two buildings, causing 119 deaths. The sequence of accidents was very shocking for the city and led to the creation of the Rio de Janeiro Municipal Geotechnical Institute Foundation (GEO RIO), responsible for slope containment actions.
Image description: The image is a black-and-white photograph of a landslide in an urban area. In the upper part of the image, we see a pyramid-shaped mountain, known as Pão de Açúcar, in Rio de Janeiro. Below it, there are residential buildings being affected by the landslide. On the left, we see taller buildings, and on the right, smaller buildings. In the center, a building is partially destroyed, highlighting the impact of the landslide. In the lower part of the image, there are more residential buildings near the land failure. The text in the image reads: "Photos – Landslide that caused the destruction of a building in Laranjeiras."1967 Landslides on Rua Belizário Távora and Cardoso Junior in Laranjeiras
In the 1980s, more precisely in 1983, yet another rainy summer caused avoidable damage: once again in Santa Teresa, on Rua Navarro, the slope of Morro da Coroa hit two buildings, and on Morro do Pavão Pavãozinho (Cantagalo), a landslide of garbage on the hillside (garbage dumps in Rio's favelas were an even bigger problem in the 1980s, creating an unconsolidated material that easily slides when soaked) killed people and destroyed many shacks in the community.
1988 is another year marked by concentrated rainfall. Many spots in Rio de Janeiro, especially in the area surrounding the Maciço da Tijuca, were hit by landslides. The most notable were Morro do Borel and Morro da Formiga in Tijuca, Morro Dona Martha in Botafogo, and the frightening landslide at Clínica Santa Genoveva, again in Santa Teresa, where 21 people who were hospitalized or working at the clinic were killed. Still under the same event, also coming down were the Serra da Misericórdia in the Madureira neighborhood, hillsides in Rocinha, two large avalanche tracks at Vista Chinesa, and the landslides on Estrada do Soberbo in Alto da Boa Vista.
Image description: The image is an aerial photograph of a rural area with scattered houses. On the left, there is a large green area covered by dense vegetation. In the center, a winding path cuts through the terrain, leading to the right. On the right, more houses are grouped together in a small village. The sky is not visible, but the lighting suggests the photo was taken during the day. The image is in natural colors, with no special effects. At the bottom of the image, there is a caption that reads: "Photo - Landslide in Morro da Formiga."Figure 116: Morro da Formiga 1988
Image description: The image is a photograph of a residential community located on a hillside. The spatial arrangement runs from foreground to background, left to right. In the foreground, we see several red brick houses with black roofs, some with balconies. As we move toward the background, we see an area of landslide-affected ground, covered in green vegetation. On the right, there is a large area of dense vegetation. The text in the image reads: "Photo - Landslide in the Santa Marta community."Morro Dona Marta, 1988
Image description: The image is an aerial photograph of two residential communities located on hillsides. In the upper part, we see a densely populated area with houses close together, built on a natural slope. To the right, there is a more open area with vegetation. Below, in the lower part of the image, we observe an area destroyed by a landslide, where several houses were leveled. Green vegetation is present on both sides, but it is more abundant in the lower part. The houses are predominantly made of brick and tile, with some areas of vegetation among them. In the lower right corner, there is text that reads: "Photos - Landslides that hit the Borel community."Morro do Borel, 1988
Image description: The image is an aerial photograph of a mountainous area with dense vegetation. In the center, there is a building partially destroyed by a landslide. On the left, other buildings are partially covered by mud. On the right, a building with a red roof remains intact. The text on the image reads: "Photo - Landslide at the Santa Genoveva clinic."Landslide at Clínica Santa Genoveva in Santa Tereza, 1988
Image description: The image is an aerial photograph of an area of dense vegetation, cut through by a landslide. On the left, the terrain is covered with green trees, while on the right, a strip of exposed soil reveals the erosion caused by the landslide. The landslide is darker, almost brown, contrasting with the green of the trees. In the lower corner, there is a caption in Portuguese mentioning the location and the event depicted.Vista Chinesa Hill Landslide, 1988
Image description: The image is a photograph of a mountainous area with dense vegetation. On the left side, there is a white house with a red roof, surrounded by trees. In the center, a dirt path cuts through the vegetation, leading to the base of the mountain. On the right, the vegetation remains dense, but there is a landslide area on the mountain slope. In the upper part of the image, the vegetation is sparser, revealing the underlying rock. The photo is in natural colors, with no special effects. In the bottom right corner, there is a caption in Portuguese that reads: "Foto – Corrida de massa que atingiu a região do Underberg."Landslide in Alto da Boa Vista, house of former resident Underberg ("the miracle cognac")
Image description: The image is a photograph of a mountainous area with dense vegetation. On the left side, there is a road cutting through the vegetation, leading to the upper part of the image where a white building is located. On the right, there is a clearer area with sparser vegetation. In the background, there is a tree line and distant mountains. The image is in shades of green and brown, with green being the predominant color. In the lower corner, there is text that reads: "Photos - Mudslide that hit the Vale do Encantado region."Vale Encantado, Alto da Boa Vista, 1988
The sense is that landslides increased in number as the decades went by, but a correction is in order: what increased was the city itself, and with it the construction of new risk areas. Landslides that occurred in uninhabited areas drew no attention and never made the press, whereas, when they occur in inhabited areas, they justifiably make the news. Therefore, if the victimization of residents increases, so does news coverage, creating the sense that more landslides are occurring. This was the case in the 1990s, with the extreme event of 1996, when the central portion of the Maciço da Tijuca and part of the Maciço da Pedra Branca were affected. The list was long in this event: Underberg, as it became known, the landslide on Rua João Batista Serqueira, in Alto da Boa Vista, with a mass of more than 10,000m³ of displaced soil and rock; very close to it, the set of landslides in Vale Encantado; further downstream, the landslide at Sítio Pai João, in Itanhangá, "the accident left, in addition to damage to the water, electricity, and telephone networks, 20 fatal victims, 170 homeless families, 20 destroyed houses, 25 condemned houses"; the Floresta residential condominium, located near Rio das Pedras, still on the western slope; the valleys of the Quitite and Papagaio rivers, in the Anil neighborhood, one of the most emblematic of the occasion, with the destruction of 200 houses, on the western slope of the Maciço da Tijuca; Rua Araticum, in the Anil neighborhood, further downstream on the same slope; Rua Capuri and Estrada das Canoas, both in the neighborhood of São Conrado; Morro Dois Irmãos, facing Rocinha, Rua Dionéia, inside Rocinha, and another facing Avenida Niemeyer; the Eldorado residential condominium, located on Rua Carlos Pace and Estrada do Pau da Fome, in the neighborhood of Jacarepaguá, and another on Estrada da Boiúna, all of these already within the Maciço da Pedra Branca.
Image description: This is a photograph of a small mountain town. On the left side, we see a mountain covered in green vegetation. Moving to the right, the vegetation becomes denser and more rugged. In the center, there is a series of colorful houses spread across a valley. On the right, there is another mountain with green vegetation and some areas of exposed earth. The sky is partly cloudy, with scattered white clouds. There is no visible text in the image.Quitite and Papagaio Hills, 1996
The turn of the millennium did nothing to change the continuity of the rains, but the city did grow more, and the working class's way of living continued to be the same, heading toward hillside slopes and flood-prone lowlands. New locations were occupied and more risk areas were produced. With the summer rains, and sometimes closing out the summer in the months of March and April, the hillsides responded with more disasters.
In 2007 and 2009, two events gained prominence even though their causes were not directly linked to torrential rains: the first was at the mouth of the Rebouças Tunnel, with the detachment of a huge mass of residual soil that blocked one of the main arteries of traffic in Rio, causing traffic jams throughout the city; the other was the dry-weather detachment of blocks from an old quarry on Rua Gama Lobo in Vila Isabel, where a condominium had been built. The rock blocks broke loose along fracture planes, falling freely onto the condominium's streets. Some houses were lightly hit by the fragments, and one fatal victim died from the shock of the blocks' fall.
Image description: The image is a photograph of two tunnel entrances, both blocked by a landslide. In the upper part, we see a tunnel entrance with a large amount of red earth dumped over it. To the left, there is a white sign with black text. The entrance is surrounded by green vegetation. In the lower part, we see another tunnel entrance, also blocked by red earth, but with less volume. This entrance is located in a darker environment, with artificial lighting.Figure 124 Rebouças Tunnel, 2007
However, in 2010, yet another extreme rainfall event (it's worth remembering that extreme events are part of the normal climatological curve of our tropical rainfall regime) hit the slopes of the Eastern portion of the Maciço da Tijuca, together with the Eastern slope of the Maciço da Pedra Branca. The neighborhoods of Cosme Velho and Santa Teresa were affected, as were Recreio and Prainha. It's worth remembering that this same rainfall episode caused the Morro do Bumba disaster in Niterói, with more than 40 deaths on a landfill that had been criminally urbanized. The landslides that occurred almost simultaneously number more than ten among the largest, plus a few dozen smaller ground ruptures. Listed in this event are the accidents at Morro dos Prazeres and Rua Almirante Alexandrino, in the neighborhood of Santa Teresa, Rua Itapiru, nearby, in the neighborhood of Catumbi, two major ones at Largo do Laboriaux, in Rocinha, Comunidade Guararapes, Estrada de Ferro do Corcovado, Ladeira do Ascurra, and Rua Itamonte, all in the neighborhood of Cosme Velho, Estrada do Rio Jequiá, on Ilha do Governador, Prainha, and Estrada da Grota Funda, already in the Serra de Guaratiba, past the neighborhood of Recreio.
Image description: This is an aerial photograph of an area affected by a landslide. The image shows a house destroyed by erosion, with exposed red earth and green vegetation around it. On the left, there are several houses and buildings close to the fault line. In the background, there is more vegetation and some distant houses.Morro dos Prazeres, 2010
Image description: The image is a photograph of a landslide that blocked Avenida Estado da Guanabara, in Grumari. On the left side, we see a winding road descending the hillside. In the center, there is a large area of displaced rocks and earth, taking up much of the image. On the right, there is dense vegetation of trees and bushes. In the background, on the left, we see an island with mountains covered in vegetation. The sky is clear and blue.Landslide with falling boulders in Prainha, 2010
The following year, in 2011, an immense block was placed across the middle of Menezes Cortes Avenue (Grajaú-Jacarepaguá Road), and outside the municipality, in the Serrana Region of Rio de Janeiro, the greatest geomorphological disaster ever seen in our history occurred, hitting the cities of Petrópolis, Teresópolis, and Nova Friburgo, and recording the highest number of deaths in climate catastrophes.
2019 closes out the decade with landslides during extreme weather events. The first significant rainfall occurrence of 2019 took place on the night of a Wednesday, February 6th, when three major landslides were recorded: in Barra de Guaratiba, Rocinha, and Inhaúma. According to Civil Defense, the neighborhoods of Rocinha and Vidigal were the hardest hit, with rainfall volumes exceeding 50 mm per hour and continuous precipitation for more than five hours. In this episode, yet another stretch of the Tim Maia bike path was compromised by a landslide on Avenida Niemeyer — the route connecting São Conrado to Leblon, in the South Zone of Rio. A similar scenario occurred again on April 8th and 9th, this time centered on Jardim Botânico. The drainage systems of the Rio dos Macacos Basin could not withstand the volume of water and overflowed, causing flooding in several homes in the area. On that occasion, the city recorded 10 deaths and yet another structural collapse on the Tim Maia bike path. The last extreme rainfall event of that year occurred between the early morning of the 16th and the morning of May 17th, when a new landslide once again hit Avenida Niemeyer, forcing its complete closure for slope containment works.
Image description: The image is a photograph of two overlapping photos, both showing an accident involving a large rock block that blocked a traffic road. In the first photo, we see the road with several people and vehicles around the block. On the left, there is a stopped emergency vehicle. In the center, a group of people is working near the block, wearing safety equipment. On the right, the block is partially within the road, causing the blockage. In the second photo, we see the block completely knocked down, with smoke coming out of it, indicating that explosives were used to remove it. In the background, there are trees and street lights.Rockfall on Estrada Grajaú-Jacarepaguá
Closing out this description, which will continue in the coming years, in 2023, new landslides in Morro da Formiga, in Tijuca, in the Zona Norte, and in Rocinha, in the Zona Sul.
These landslides reveal not only the failures in Rio de Janeiro's urban infrastructure and geotechnical planning, but also the deep social inequalities that make many areas vulnerable to these disasters. The lack of effective public policies, especially regarding land-use planning, housing policy, and slope containment, remains an obstacle to reducing landslide risks. The GEO Rio document highlights that, despite efforts to minimize damage and improve infrastructure, the city still suffers from precarious conditions in many areas, which makes a new approach to disaster prevention essential -- disasters that are very little "natural."
*these photos were taken from the document D'Orsi et al, 2016 OS 50 MAIORES ACIDENTES GEOLÓGICO-GEOTÉCNICOS NA CIDADE DO RIO DE JANEIRO ENTRE 1966 e 2016, Fundação Instituto de Geotécnica do Município do Rio de Janeiro, Diretoria de Estudos e Projetos, Gerência de Programas Especiais
