Huge fire wrecks preparations for Rio carnival

Brazil's world-famous Rio de Janeiro carnival went up in flames today as fire destroyed warehouses holding many of the costumes and floats for this year's event.

With just a month left before the start on March 6, there is no way to fully replace them.

Seamstresses, set designers and musicians watched in tears as firefighters struggled to control the blaze near Rio's port.

"Do you know what it feels like to work all day, into the night, to make this happen, and then this?" asked Graziela Goncalves Carvalho, a seamstress with one of the groups that appeared to have suffered heavy losses. "It's over. There's nothing. This carnival is over for us."

Three hours after the fire, 120 firefighters had controlled the flames that appeared to have severely damaged warehouses belonging to three of the samba organisations that compete in the two-day parade, as well as Independent League of Samba Groups that organises the event.

The cause was still being investigated.

There were no reports of serious injuries or deaths, although some workers were in the warehouses when the fire started just before 7am.

Even before the flames were out, it was clear that four of the four-storey warehouses were extensively damaged, with two of them collapsing internally. Ten warehouses were not affected by the flames.

Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, who plays in one samba group's percussion section, promised the city would help the groups recover and vowed that the carnival parades would go on.

"These people will put on a great carnival, and will show the energy and the optimism that Rio has," he said.

Mr Paes has no control over the independent samba competition, but he said he hoped that groups hit by the fire would not risk being demoted. Under a football-style league system, low-scoring samba groups can be dropped into a lesser league for the coming year.

Even with help, rebuilding an entire year's worth of work is not possible in a month, he said.

"They won't be in any condition to compete," he said.

But many were already trying to bounce back.

"I've cried a lot over this, and now it's time to think about what can be saved," said Roberto Szaniecki, the theme developer for Portela group as he hugged friends. "But I want to make this clear: we're going to get out there. We've got a carnival to put on."

The most heavily affected group appeared to be Grande Rio. It apparently lost the entire contents of its parade: eight complicated floats and 3,000 elaborately embroidered costumes.

It cost around €4m with around 7,000 people working for eight months to pull it all together.