based on article by Vladimir Platonow Reporter Agência Brasil

Rio de Janeiro – During the night of Wednesday, April 7, 2010, the life of 18-year-old Eberton Bitile was dramatically changed forever. The shack built on a hillside where he and his extended family lived, a total of thirteen people, was in danger of collapsing and sliding down the hill during heavy rains. So everybody went to another shack that seemed to offer more protection.
The second shack belonged to Evandro da Silva Barci, who was a kind of good Samaritan of the Morro do Bambu, in Niteroi. Evandro, seeing the danger in the higher part of the ghetto gave refuge to no less than six different families that night (he went out in the rain and told others they should leave their own shacks and go to his for safety). His home was better built than the others and seemed to be in a safer place. It wasn’t.
The whole hillside gave way. Everything was sweep away, including Evandro’s home, and buried in tons of mud and rubble (the ghetto was built on top of a landfill).  Eberton was visiting his girlfriend in another neighborhood and was the only survivor.  “Now I don’t have a home or relatives. I guess I am going to live with my girlfriend,” was all the dazed young man could say.

Allen Bennett - translator/editor The News in English