RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 9, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - At least seven people were killed
and three were missing after a cliff collapsed onto boats carrying tourists
on a lake in Brazil, authorities said Saturday.

   Rescue teams including a dive squad and members of the Brazilian Navy
rushed to Furnas Lake in Minas Gerais state, where panicked tourists had
watched helplessly as a large rock fragment broke off a ravine and plunged
atop three boats.

   The latest official toll is "seven dead and three missing," Minas Gerais
firefighters' spokesman Pedro Aihara said on Saturday night.

   Another 32 were wounded, including nine who had to be hospitalized,
authorities said.

   Firefighters had initially reported 20 missing, but "that number was
substantially reduced because a good part of the victims who were unaccounted
for were people who moved by their own means to hospitals," Aihara said in a
voice message sent to reporters.

   Tourists flock to see the rock walls, caverns and waterfalls that surround
the green waters of Lake Furnas, formed by the hydroelectric dam of the same
name.

   Dramatic videos shared on social networks caught the exact moment when the
cliff fell on the three boats.

   Another video posted on social media shows the minute before the fall, in
which several people warn that "lots of stones are falling" and yell at the
occupants of the other boats to move away from the wall.

   President Jair Bolsonaro retweeted some of these videos on his account,
and reported that "as soon as the unfortunate disaster occurred, the
Brazilian Navy moved to the site to rescue victims and transport the
injured."

   The divers' search will be interrupted overnight for safety reasons and
resumed in the morning, but other rescuers continue to work at the site.

   Very heavy rain has fallen in recent days in southeastern Brazil, making
the collapse more likely, according to firefighters.