A severe hailstorm struck eastern Minas Gerais, leaving 4,000 homeless and killing at least 22 people across the Rio Doce and Mucuri valleys.
Key Facts
- Deaths recorded
- At least 22 (20 in Itabirinha, 2 in Ipatinga)
- Injured in Itabirinha
- 600 people
- Homeless in Itabirinha
- 4,000 people
- Houses damaged
- 1,800 damaged, 50 completely destroyed
- Maximum hailstone weight
- 1 kg
- Coffee crop lost (rural area)
- 50% of municipality's crop
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
A severe atmospheric storm system moved through the Rio Doce and Mucuri valleys of Minas Gerais on September 30, 1985, generating intense hail and heavy rainfall. Hailstones reached up to one kilogram in weight, indicating an exceptionally powerful convective event affecting multiple municipalities including Itabirinha, Ipatinga, Teófilo Otoni, and Mantena.
The storm struck Itabirinha—then known as Itabirinha de Mantena—with hailstones lasting approximately fifteen minutes, destroying fifty homes outright and damaging 1,800 others, representing more than half of the urban residences. Twenty people died and six hundred were wounded in that municipality alone. In Ipatinga, two additional deaths and material damage were recorded.
The disaster left 4,000 of Itabirinha's roughly 10,000 residents homeless and wiped out half of the municipality's rural coffee crop, causing significant agricultural and economic losses. The affected municipalities required emergency relief, and the event highlighted the vulnerability of rural communities in Minas Gerais to extreme weather events.