Tornadoes tear through rural Mississippi and Alabama, killing 26

A pickup truck rests on top of a restaurant cooler at Chuck's Dairy Cafe in Rolling Fork, Miss., Saturday, March 25, 2023.
©Rogelio V. Solis/AP

An entire town, flattened. Injured people staggering out of what was left of their homes, impaled with debris. And no tornado siren to be heard.

That scene is what professional storm chaser Zachary Hall found driving into Rolling Fork, Miss., after a tornado roared through.

“There were people everywhere, too many to count,” Hall said. “We initially saw a group of seven or eight people with injuries.”

More than a dozen tornadoes reportedly tore through Mississippi and Alabama on Friday night, leaving at least 26 dead and a swath of devastation 100 miles wide as severe weather continues to threaten various parts of the United States.

There is utter destruction everywhere in Rolling Fork. Homes and businesses have been reduced to rubble. Mangled cars lay flipped. Massive trees were uprooted and tossed. It was all part of one of the deadliest tornado events in Mississippi’s history. Sharkey and Humphreys counties, both rural areas of the state that are predominantly Black, were the hardest hit, especially their towns of Rolling Fork and Silver City.

“The loss will be felt in these towns forever,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) wrote on Twitter. He later added “Devastating damage — as everyone knows. This is a tragedy.”

The tornadoes stretched from the Louisiana border of Mississippi through Alabama as part of a supercell, or rotating thunderstorm — a rare, extended path for such a storm. The deadly devastation was amplified by the twisters’ ferocity, which crushed many of the area’s mobile homes, which are more vulnerable to destruction from strong winds. And the storm’s nocturnal path took residents by surprise as they slept.

“People here are devastated,” said Leroy Smith Jr., a member of the Sharkey County Board of Supervisors. “Last night they had their houses. Today they don’t.”

Winds gusted up to 80 mph while sheets of rain and hail the size of golf balls pounded the region. Dozens are injured, and four missing people were accounted for by Saturday afternoon, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said.

Severe storms also rolled through parts of the Southeast and Ohio Valley on Saturday, downing trees and power lines. One tornado was reported in Barber in southern Alabama, near the border with Georgia, around 9 a.m. Saturday.

The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center is forecasting an elevated risk of severe thunderstorms for Sunday in a zone running from central Louisiana to southeast North Carolina, including southern Mississippi and Alabama. “Large hail to very large hail should be the main threat,” the center wrote. “Damaging winds and a few tornadoes also appear possible.”

Ricky Shivers is leading a group of coroners to identify the dead in Rolling Fork. Reached by phone in the temporary morgue facilities that went up around 2 a.m. Saturday morning, he detailed how the local hospital was forced to close as a result of the damage. Other parts of the town were “completely obliterated.”

He and his fellow coroners are waiting as the search and rescue teams comb through the area.

“It is very disturbing, for sure,” he said of the death toll.

Keivdra Walker was at home Friday night with her husband and four younger cousins in the Blue Front neighborhood of Rolling Fork. The roof fell in on her husband, and she was thrown into the hall by the force of the wind, she said.

They were trapped for about an hour while a live wire lay on top of and behind her house. They could hear other people screaming in their houses for help, she said.

The family is trying to see what they can salvage, although she said her daughter’s laptop and some clothes appear to have been stolen.

All the patients in the Sharkey Issaquena Community Hospital were evacuated Friday night and early Saturday morning, said S. Jerry Keever, the hospital’s administrator and chief executive.

“I don’t know when I’m gonna sleep again,” Keever said, adding that he had been up through the night. Those patients were transferred to a temporary hospital in nearby Amory.

The Double Quick gas station in Rolling Fork had extensive exterior damage, but the eight people who sheltered inside on Friday night are mostly okay after sheltering in the cooler.

“It could have been a lot worse,” said Eric Whitaker, regional director of operations for Double Quick.

Some storm chasers believe a “wedge” tornado may be to blame for the wreckage. That type of tornado appears to be wider than it is tall, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Some of the largest and most destructive tornadoes in history” have been wedge tornadoes, AccuWeather said.

The wedge tornado was likely on the ground for 90 minutes covering 80 miles as it chewed up west-central Mississippi, according to the National Weather Service.

The tornado was so powerful that WTVA meteorologist Matt Laubhan was moved to pray on air as he evaluated its force.

“Dear Jesus, please help them. Amen,” he said.

One “extremely high-caliber” tornado lifted debris to above 30,000 feet, said Samuel Emmerson, a member of the radar research group at the University of Oklahoma on Twitter.

President Biden called the images from the ground in Mississippi “heartbreaking” in a statement and said that he had spoken with Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell, who will travel to Mississippi on Sunday with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He also spoke with the governor, Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) to pledge his support.

More than 40,000 customers throughout Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama were without power as of Saturday afternoon, reported PowerOutage.us, a site that tracks and aggregates data from utility companies. Another 200,000 Ohioans were without power after the same system caused damage, according to the site.

The National Weather Service is warning of ongoing danger from the fallout of the tornadoes, cautioning residents to stay away from power lines and be wary of damaged buildings and walking or driving through floodwaters.

“Do not enter a damaged building until local authorities say it’s safe. Leave your home if there’s shifting or unusual noises,” a fact sheet from the National Weather Service’s Jackson office read.

Officials also cautioned residents against forming their own search and rescue teams and urged them to boil water. Three shelters have opened for those displaced from their homes in Sharkey, Monroe and Humphreys counties.

Several Mississippi counties reported deaths. In Sharkey County, one of the hardest-hit towns, at least 13 people had died, Coroner Angelia Easton told news outlets. Monroe County Coroner Alan Gurley told The Washington Post that there were at least two fatalities in Wren, a community in northeast Mississippi.

There was at least one death in Silver City, in Humphreys County, Mississippi Highway Patrol Trooper Jose Watson said in a video. He urged people to stay away unless they had family in the 300-person town, calling the damage “very catastrophic.”

And at least three deaths had occurred in Carroll County Coroner Mark Stiles told WTVA.

In Alabama, a 67-year-old man was killed at home in Morgan County, The Washington Post confirmed.

In Rolling Fork, Alexis and Miriam Hamilton were in their two-story house with their 13-year-old son when they heard the tornado coming. They ran to the basement where they held each other in the corner until the sounds stopped.

Some of their good family friends died in the tornado. Miriam Hamilton said she wondered, “okay God, what are you up to?”

Perahu Penyeberangan Tenggelam di Surabaya

Seorang penumpang dinyatakan hilang setelah perahu tambang yang ditumpanginya tenggelam di Kal Pagesangan-Kemlaten, Karang Pilang, Surabaya, hari Sabtu, 25/03/2023, sekitar pukul 07.30 WIB.

Selain seorang penumpang hilang, beberapa unit sepeda motor ikut karam di badan perahu.

Diketahui perahu yang tenggelam adalah perahu penyeberangan atau perahu tambang yang menghubungkan Jalan Mastrip dengan Pagesangan Surabaya

Salah seorang korban selamat asal Kebraon, Surabaya, Agus, mengatakan saat kejadian perahu baru akan menyeberang ke arah Pagesangan.

Kata Agus, seorang penumpang nekat berenang ketika perahu mulai tenggelam, hari Sabtu pagi, 25/3/2023.

Saat perahu mulai miring, salah satu penumpang langsung loncat dan berenang.

Padahal arus kali Surabaya sangat besar.

Sementara Agus memilih bertahan di perahu.

3 FAKTA BARU Perahu Penyeberangan Tenggelam di Surabaya

Terungkap sederet fakta baru tentang insiden perahu penyeberangan tenggelam di Sungai Brantas, kawasan Jalan Mastrip Kemlaten Tambangan Gang 8, Karang Pilang, Kota Surabaya.

Salah satu fakta baru yang terungkap yakni Polsek Karang Pilang Polrestabes Surabaya sudha menemukan penyebabnya.

Kepolisian menduga kebocoran menjadi penyebab tenggelamnya perahu tersebut.

Sementara itu, pencairan korban perahu penyeberangan tenggelam di Surabaya masih berlanjut.

Berikut rangkuman faktanya.

1. Penyebabnya Terungkap

Polsek Karang Pilang Polrestabes Surabaya menduga, kebocoran menjadi penyebab tenggelamnya perahu penyeberangan dengan tali tambang di Sungai Brantas, kawasan Jalan Mastrip Kemlaten Tambangan Gang 8, Karang Pilang, Kota Surabaya pada Sabtu pagi, 25/3/2023.

Kanit Reskrim Polsek Karang Pilang, Iptu Gogot Purwanto mengatakan, didapati adanya kebocoran pada sisi kanan lambung perahu.

Temuan tersebut, berdasarkan hasil olah tempat kejadian perkara (TKP) dengan memeriksa kondisi perahu. Termasuk pemeriksaan terhadap sejumlah saksi atau korban selamat.

Perahu penyeberangan berpenumpang 14 orang, dua orang operator perahu dan sekitar delapan sepeda motor para penumpang, tenggelam saat menyeberang dari arah Karang Pilang menuju Pagesangan.

"Perahu mengalami kebocoran di sisi kanan lambung perahu saat mulai berangkat menyeberang ke arah Pagesangan, berjarak 4 meter dari Tambangan Kemlaten, perahu mulai tenggelam," kata Iptu Gogot saat , Sabtu, 25/03/2023.

Sekitar 13 orang penumpang termasuk dua operator perahu dinyatakan selamat, meski sempat tenggelam. Dua orang penumpang di antaranya harus menjalani perawatan medis di RS Wiyung Sejahtera, Surabaya. Namun, satu orang korban dinyatakan hilang karena terseret arus sungai.

2. Update Pencarian Korban

Operasi pencarian terhadap Desire Peni Cindy Katrine (23), korban perahu tambang tenggelam di Sungai Brantas, kawasan Jalan Mastrip Kemlaten Tambangan Gang 8, Karang Pilang, Kota Surabaya, hari Sabtu, 25/03/2023.

Hingga pukul 17.00 WIB, pencarian terhadap korban belum membuahkan hasil. Pencarian tersebut, akhirnya dihentikan sementara.

Regu penyelamat yang menyisir korban dengan cara menyelam maupun menggunakan perahu karet, ditarik mundur ke pinggir sungai.

Di pinggir sungai sekitar lokasi insiden tenggelamnya perahu penyeberangan, terlihat telah terpasang tenda.

Meskipun pencarian dihentikan sementara, tapi ternyata ketika malam ada regu penyelamat yang bersiaga di tempat tersebut.

Apabila malam ada tanda-tanda korban muncul ke permukaan sungai, maka regu penyelamat akan segera melakukan evakuasi.

Sebelum pencarian dihentikan sementara, regu penyelamat telah mengevakuasi 9 sepeda motor yang tenggelam di sungai bersama perahu tambang.

Salah satunya adalah Honda Supra GTR dengan Nopol L 4632 JI, milik kekasih Desire Peni Cindy Katrine.

Octavino selaku Komandan Tim Basarnas mengatakan, proses pencarian korban sudah dilakukan maksimal. Pertama regu penyelamat langsung diturunkan di Sungai Brantas selang beberapa menit setelah Desire dilaporkan hanyut.

Pukul 13.00 -13.45, tim penyelam sungai mencari korban dengan dibekali drone under water.

13.45, tim SAR gabungan menerjunkan 10 kapal karet di Sungai Brantas. Secara bergantian mereka menyisir keberadaan korban di pinggiran sungai sambil membuat manuver ombak di tengah sungai. Tujuannya, apabila korban berada di dasar sungai, dapat naik ke permukaan sungai.

Tak hanya itu, pencarian juga dilakukan hingga mendekati pintu air Rolak. Akan tetap semuai upaya tersebut belum menemukan titik terang keberadaan korban. Hingga akhirnya pencarian dihentikan sementara pada pukul 17.00.

"Kendalanya arus sungai sangat deras. Lalu airnya sangat keruh. Jarak pandang kami menggunakan under water hanya mampu satu jengkal tangan," kata Octavino.

Octavino memastikan operasi pencarian akan terus dilakukan hingga 7 hari ke depan. Khusus untuk operasi hari kedua pada hari Minggu, 26/03/2023, metodenya tetap sama.

3. Sosok Desire Peni Cindy

Paras Desire Peni Cindy Katrine terbilang cantik, usianya baru 23 tahun.

Nahas, nasibnya menjadi korban perahu penyeberangan tenggelam di Sungai Brantas, kawasan Jalan Mastrip Kemlaten Tambangan Gang 8, Karang Pilang, Surabaya, hari Sabtu pagi, 25/03/2023.

Gadis asal Kemlaten Gang 8 itu, hilang terbawa arus Sungai Brantas ketika perahu penyeberangan tersebut tenggelam.

Korban saat itu bersama kekasihnya, Iqbal naik perahu penyeberangan karena hendak berangkat kerja di distributor air mineral di kawasan Panjang Jiwo. Baru tiga meter perahu tersebut menyeberang, tiba-tiba bagian depan kapal tenggelam.

Elok, kakak Desire Peni Cindy Katrine mengatakan, korban sehari-hari di rumah disapa Desi.

Desi, ungkap Elok, di keluarga dikenal sebagai sosok yang ceria. Sering mengajak jalan-jalan ibunya setiap libur kerja.

Tahun ini, Desi memiliki rencana menikah dengan kekasihnya. Pertengahan tahun nanti akan lamaran. Kemudian menikah di akhir tahun.

"Sudah ada niat nikah memang, tapi belum terlaksana, ada insiden begini," ujar Elok.

Sekitar pukul 13.22 WIB, Elok bersama suami dan saudaranya datang di lokasi kejadian. Elok membawa guci kaca berisi potongan-potongan bunga mawar warna merah dan putih.

Bunga-bunga itu lalu ditaburkan ke Sungai Brantas, lokasi insiden tenggelamnya perahu penyeberangan. Suasana haru pun terasa. Semua keluarga Desi menangis.

Indonesia berhasil unggul 3-1 atas Burundi pada FIFA Match Day

Timnas Indonesia berhasil mengalahkan Tim Burundi dalam pertandingan persahabatan FIFA Match Day 2023, pada hari Sabtu, 25/03/2023) di Stadion Patriot Candrabagha dengan skor 3-1. Di babak pertama Indonesia berjaya karena mencetakkan tiga gol sekaligus. Namun di babak kedua Burundi berhasil memperkecil selisih dengan mencetak gol tunggal yang bertahan hingga pertandingan berakhir.

Tampil impresif timnas Indonesia membuktikan, lebih baik dari segala lini pada babak pertama lawan Burundi. Hasilnya, tim arahan Shin Tae Yong berhasil unggul tiga gol tanpa balas.

Yakob Sayuri sukses membuka keran gol Indonesia lewat sundulan terukur di menit keenam. Gol tersebut tercipta berkat kejelian Stefano Lilipaly dalam membaca pergerakan Yakob.

Umpan melengkung Stefano Lilipaly ke kotak penalti berhasil disundul Yakob Sayuri. Kiper Burundi, Mutombora Fabien, pun tak berdaya mengadang laju bola.

Setelah mencetak gol cepat, Timnas Indonesia makin percaya diri. Skuad Garuda pun berhasil menggandakan keunggulan di menit ke-14.

Gol ini bermula dari umpan silang Pratama Arhan yang disundul Stefano Lilipaly. Kiper Burundi mampu menepis bola tetapi bek-bek Burundi tidak bisa membuang bola dengan baik.

Kemelut terjadi di kotak penalti Burundi dan kemudian umpan dari Rachmat Irianto memudahkan Dendy Sulistyawan mencetak gol. Skor 2-0 untuk Timnas Indonesia.

Kemelut terjadi di kotak penalti Burundi dan kemudian umpan dari Rachmat Irianto memudahkan Dendy Sulistyawan mencetak gol. Skor 2-0 untuk Timnas Indonesia.

Keunggulan Indonesia bertambah satu menit jelang waktu normal berakhir. Kesalahan kiper Fabien dalam mengantisipasi umpan sepak pojok Pratama Arhan jadi petaka.

Bola liar akibatk kesalahan Fabien berhasil disambar Rizky Ridho yang berada di tengah kotak penalti. Skor 3-0 untuk keunggulan Indonesia bertahan hingga babak pertama usai.

Timnas Indonesia melakukan pergantian pemain pada menit ke-46 dengan memainkan Syahrian Abimanyu dan menarik keluar Rachmat Irianto.

Meski diserang Burundi, pertahanan Indonesia tetap tenang. Bek Jordi Amat masih berani backpass kepada kiper Syahrul Trisna walaupun beberapa pemain Burundi di kotak penalti Tim Merah Putih.

Burundi mencetak gol pada menit ke-51 melalui Niyongabire Pacifique guna memperkecil kedudukan jadi 1-3. Pacifique lebih dahulu mengecoh Elkan Baggott dan Pratama Arhan sebelum melepaskan tendangan placing kaki kiri ke pojok kiri gawang Syahrul.

Indonesia menyerang pada menit ke-57 tendangan Yakob Sayuri hasil operan Dendy Sulistyawan diblok kiper Burundi.

Pada menit ke-65 STY melakukan pergantian tiga pemain sekaligus: Edo Febriansah, Witan Sulaeman, dan Ramadhan Sananta menggantikan Pratama Arhan, Stefano Lilipaly, dan Dendy Sulistyawan.

Pada menit ke-72 Jordi Amat melakukan sapu bersih menghalau bola yang mengancam gawang Indonesia.

Giliran Riko Simanjuntak dimainkan STY menggantikan Yakob Sayuri pada menit ke-69.

Kiper Mutombora Fabien membuat penyelamatan gemilang dengan menyundul bola umpan terobosan Indonesia yang hendak disambar Yakob Sayuri pada menit ke-67.

Kiper Syahrul Trisna lagi-lagi menyelamatkan gawang Indonesia dari kebobolan setelah menggagalkan tendangan keras Bimenyimana Bon-Fils Caleb pada menit ke-85.

Indonesia terus mendapat gempuran dari Burundi menjelang akhir pertandingan. Meski demikian sesekali Tim Merah Putih melancarkan serangan balik. Tendangan jarak jauh Syahrian Abimanyu pada menit ke-90 masih melayang di atas gawang Burundi.

Syahrul kembali mementahkan percobaan gol Burundi, kali ini lewat Nshimirimana Jospin pada menit ke-90+4. Tanpa tambahan gol pada sisa laga, Timnas Indonesia menang 3-1 atas Burundi.

The Amazon’s Largest Isolated Tribe Is Dying

Illegal mines have fueled a humanitarian crisis for the Yanomami Indigenous group. Brazil’s new president is trying to fight back.

The illegal tin mine was so remote that, for three years, the massive gash it cut into the Amazon rainforest had gone largely ignored.

So when three mysterious helicopters suddenly hovered overhead, unannounced, the miners living there scrambled into the forest.

By the time Brazil’s environmental special forces team piled out, the miners were out of sight, but the mine’s two large pumps were still vibrating in the mud. The federal agents began dousing the machines in diesel fuel.

As they were set to ignite them, about two-dozen Indigenous people came jogging out of the forest, carrying bows and arrows taller than them. They were from the Yanomami tribe, and the miners had been destroying their land — and their tribe — for years.

But as the Yanomami arrived, they realized these new visitors were there to help. The agents were dismantling the mine and then promised to give the Yanomamis the miners’ supplies.

“Friends are not miners, no,” said the only Yanomami man who spoke basic Portuguese, with other men crowding around.

About two dozen Yanomami people emerged from the rainforest, carrying machetes and six-foot bows and arrows

Felipe Finger, the head of Brazil’s environmental special forces team, burning a water pump at an illegal mine

An explosion of illegal mining in this vast swath of the Amazon has created a humanitarian crisis for the Yanomami people, cutting their food supplies, spreading malaria and, in some cases, threatening the Yanomamis with violence, according to government scientists and officials.

The miners use mercury to separate gold from mud, and recent analyses show that Yanomami rivers contain mercury levels 8,600 percent higher than what is considered safe. Mercury poisoning can cause birth defects and neurological damage.

The infant mortality rate among the 31,000 Yanomamis in Brazil now exceeds those of war-torn and famine-stricken countries, with one in 10 infants dying, compared with about one in 100 in the rest of the country, according to government data. Many of those deaths are avoidable, caused by malnutrition, malaria, pneumonia, and other illnesses.

“Lots of diarrhea, vomiting,” said the Yanomami man at the mine, who would not give a name. “No health, no help, nothing.”

But now Brazil’s new leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has made saving the Yanomamis his top priority in his push to halt the Amazon’s destruction. The government declared a state of emergency in January and has airlifted severely malnourished people out of villages, set up a checkpoint at a major waterway into the territory and hunted and destroyed active mines.

A team of Brazil’s environmental special forces preparing to land at an illegal tin mine in territory belonging to the Yanomami tribe

The environmental special forces team at an illegal mine. Illicit mining increased in recent years as the country’s former right-wing president opened the Amazon to miners

While the miners began arriving in 2016, the crisis erupted under the right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro, who after being elected in 2018, cut staffing and funding for the agencies tasked with protecting the forest.

The area illegally mined in the lush Yanomami territory quadrupled during his tenure to nearly 20 square miles, or roughly the size of Manhattan, according to satellite data.

Inside the Amazon Rainforest

• Drilling for Oil: A novel idea to leave Ecuador's vast oil reserves in the ground fizzled for lack of international support. Now, struggling under painful debt, the government wants to expand drilling in the Amazon.



• At a ‘Tipping Point’?: Losing the Amazon would be catastrophic for tens of thousands of species. And some scientists fear that it may become a grassy savanna — with profound effects on the climate worldwide.



• Illegal Airfields: The Times identified more than 1,200 unregistered airstrips across the Brazilian Amazon. Many of them are part of criminal networks that are destroying Indigenous land and threatening its people

“On the one hand, you’re happy because you’re fighting environmental crimes again,” said Felipe Finger, the head of Brazil’s environmental special forces team, who led the operation at the tin mine. “On the other hand, it’s sad, because it’s been four years since the forest began bleeding — and it bled a lot.”

The government is fighting a literal gold rush. Thousands of prospectors have invaded the land for gold and other precious metals, with a productive dig site yielding roughly 11 pounds of pure gold a week, or about $300,000 on the local black market. Researchers estimate that there are hundreds of active mines in Yanomami land.

For their part, the Yanomamis at the mine had never heard of Mr. Lula or Mr. Bolsonaro, but they were clear that the miners had brought hardship. “People is hungry,” the Yanomami man said, as Mr. Finger lit the rumbling pumps on fire.

Nearby, other agents were searching the miners’ shelter, a wood-plank cabin with a refrigerator, stove and two satellite-internet dishes from Brazil’s state telecom company. (Agents had recently discovered other miners using devices from Starlink, a satellite-internet service run by Elon Musk.)

At the cabin, they also discovered a miner who had lingered too long.

Edmilson Dias said he had been working at the mine for two months, originally arriving via helicopter, and made $1,000 a week. Now he was sitting on a stump, his hands behind his back, two camouflaged agents with long rifles at his side.

Yet he remained defiant.

“To tell you the truth, I’ll leave here and go to another mine,” he said, saying the money was too good to stop.

It underscored that the government and Yanomamis’ fight against the miners had only just begun.

“Mining is a fever,” he said. “You can’t end it.”

‘Worse Than It Ever Was’

Instead of months, the Yanomamis count moons, and instead of years, they track the harvests of the pupunha fruit. Evidence suggests they have lived in the Amazon for thousands of harvests. And unlike many other Indigenous groups, their way of life still bears some resemblance to that of their ancestors.

Across 370 remote forest villages, multiple families share large domed huts, but tend their own plots of cassava, bananas and papaya. The men hunt and the women farm. And they do not interact much with the outside world.

Their first sustained contact with white people, American missionaries, came in the 1960s. Shortly after, more Brazilians arrived, carried deeper into the Amazon by new roads and an appetite for gold. With contact came new diseases, and thousands of Yanomamis died.

Things got worse in the 1980s when a gold rush brought more illness and violence. In response, in 1992, the Brazilian government protected about 37,000 square miles of the forest along the border with Venezuela for the Yanomamis, creating Brazil’s largest Indigenous territory, an expanse larger than Portugal.

But by 2018, as Mr. Bolsonaro ran for president, prospectors were already rushing in again, driven by rising gold prices. Illegal mining soared — and Mr. Bolsonaro’s administration largely watched.

“In the last four years, we have seen apathy, perhaps intentional,” said Alisson Marugal, a federal prosecutor investigating the Bolsonaro administration’s handling of the Yanomami territory. “They failed to act, aware that they were allowing a humanitarian crisis to happen.”

Mr. Marugal’s office accuses Mr. Bolsonaro’s government of weakening the Indigenous health care system, exacerbating the crisis. Health workers were sometimes blocked from buying food for the Yanomamis, his office said in a complaint in November 2021. The government had previously decided it should provide 23 doctors for the Yanomamis, but by late 2021, there were 12.

Mr. Bolsonaro has said his government carried out 20 operations to aid Indigenous groups, helping 449,000 people. “Never has a government given so much attention and means to the Indigenous people as Jair Bolsonaro,” he wrote on Twitter in January.

Today, the plight of many Yanomami children is unmistakable: They are starving. Their skeletons are visible through their skin, their faces gaunt and their bellies swollen, a telltale sign of malnourishment. A recent government study found that 80 percent of Yanomami children were below average height and 50 percent were underweight.

Dr. Paulo Basta, a government physician who has studied the Yanomamis for 25 years, said malnutrition among Yanomami children “is worse than it ever was.’’

During the Bolsonaro administration, 570 Yanomami children died of avoidable causes, such as malnutrition, diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria, up from 441 in the previous four years, according to data compiled by a Brazilian environmental-news site, Sumaúma. (The government has not kept consistent, accurate records.)

Scientists and researchers say the health crisis has a clear cause. The mining clears trees, disrupts waterways and transforms the landscape, scaring away prey and hurting crops. The mines’ standing water breeds mosquitoes, which help spread malaria that the miners bring in from the cities. The disease had once been largely rooted out among the Yanomamis. In recent years, virtually every member of the tribe has had it. And then there is the mercury seeping into the ground and the rivers.

At a children’s hospital in Boa Vista, Brazil, a city outside the Yanomami territory, Yanomami families crowded into a room with 12 hammocks strung from the ceiling. Some children were being treated for severe malnourishment, others for malaria.

A young mother in a hammock breastfed her 8-month-old daughter, who weighed just six pounds. The girl was receiving a blood transfusion and a feeding tube. Crops in the village were failing, her father said. “It’s difficult to get them to sprout,” a translator relayed. “He said he doesn’t know why.”

‘I Sell It to Whomever’

At a nearby restaurant, Eric Silva reached over a table with a nearly half-pound chunk of solid gold. Mr. Silva, a gold trader, had bought it that day for roughly $10,000. The government, he said, would never be able to stop the hunt for such wealth.

“It’s a cultural thing,” he said. “Since Brazil’s founding, ore has been extracted.”

Mr. Silva spent 22 years as a miner, until the government burned his machinery, costing him $115,000. But now he has reinvented himself, and buys and sells about nine pounds of gold a month, or about $230,000 on the black market.

“I sell it to whomever arrives and pays the best price,” he said. “I’ve sold gold to the Americans, to the French. I don’t know where they take it, but I know I sell it.”

While Yanomamis are dying, the gold industry is thriving. All mining is illegal in Roraima, the state that includes much of the Yanomami land, but the streets of Boa Vista are lined with gold shops.

At the start of the government’s operation against miners in January, officials estimated there were up to 20,000 people connected to illegal mining inside the Yanomami territory, including miners, cooks, pilots and prostitutes. During the gold rush in the same land 30 years ago, it took the government years to extract all the miners.

Mr. Finger’s special forces team now leads the battle to run illegal miners off Indigenous land. On the recent trip into the forest, they found a recently abandoned gold mine and the active mine harvesting cassiterite, the main ore to make tin. At both, the main goal was to destroy the expensive machinery.

They also were looking for mercury, and at the miners’ cabin, Mr. Finger found it. He emerged angry, holding a small bottle of the shiny liquid. Mr. Dias, the miner who had lingered, was nonchalant. “That’s not much, sir,” he said.

The agents instructed the Yanomami people, who had been watching, to help clear the cabin. They piled bags of flour, rice and beans alongside clothes, pillows and cookware. Then they carried everything, including a large speaker, back to their huts.

The agents lit the cabin on fire, boarded the helicopters and took off. Mr. Dias was left behind, without supplies.

On the ride out, spirals of smoke rose from below. It then quickly became clear that the mine was part of a much longer string of destruction, open pit after open pit. On each side was thick forest — cleared in some spots to make room for a Yanomami shelter.

Hungary: Criticism makes it hard to cooperate with West

The West’s steady criticism of Hungary on democratic and cultural issues makes the small European country’s right-wing government reluctant to offer support on practical matters, specifically NATO’s buildup against Russia, Hungary’s foreign minister said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó also said Friday that his country has not voted on whether to allow Finland and Sweden to join NATO because Hungarian lawmakers are sick of those countries’ critiques of Hungarian domestic affairs.

Lawmakers from the governing party plan to vote Monday in favor of the Finnish request but “serious concerns were raised” about Finland and Sweden in recent months “mostly because of the very disrespectful behavior of the political elites of both countries towards Hungary,” Szijjártó said.

“You know, when Finnish and Swedish politicians question the democratic nature of our political system, that’s really unacceptable,” he said.

The timing of a vote on Sweden is harder to predict, Szijjártó said.

The EU, which includes 21 NATO countries, has frozen billions in funds to Budapest and accused populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban of cracking down on media freedom and LGBTQ rights. Orban’s administration has also been accused of tolerating an entrenched culture of corruption and co-opting state institutions to serve the governing Fidesz party.

In a European Parliament resolution, EU lawmakers declared last year that Hungary had become “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” under Orban’s nationalist government and that its undermining of the bloc’s democratic values had taken Hungary out of the community of democracies.

That criticism raised objections within Hungary and made it hard for the government to support Finland and Sweden’s bids to join NATO, Szijjártó said. Skeptics insist that Hungary has simply been trying to win lucrative concessions.

When it comes to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Szijjártó said that his country’s advocacy of peace does not mean accepting that Russia would keep the territory it currently controls.

“You know, stopping the war and sitting around the table does not mean that you accept the status quo,” he said. “When the war stops and the peace talks start, it’s not necessary that the borders would be where the front lines are. We know this from our own history as well ... Cease-fire has to come now.”

As for relations with the United States, Szijjártó said they had a heyday under former President Donald Trump. His government found things more difficult under President Joe Biden.

In perfect, nearly unaccented English, Szijjártó explained that Hungary is “a clearly rightist, right-wing, Christian Democratic, conservative, patriotic government.” He then went on in terms that would be familiar to millions of Americans.

“So we are basically against the mainstream in any attributes of ours. And if you are against the liberal mainstream, and in the meantime, you are successful, and in the meantime, you continue to win elections, it’s not digestible for the liberal mainstream itself,” he said. “Under President Trump, the political relationship was as good as never before.”

Key to that relationship was Trump’s acceptance of Hungary’s policies toward its own citizens. The government has banned the sharing of materials with minors that it regards as a display or promotion of homosexuality or gender reassignment.

The law has been condemned by human rights groups and politicians from around Europe as an attack on Hungary’s LGBT community.

Szijjártó said Trump was more welcoming of such measures than the Biden administration.

“He never wanted to impose anything. He never wanted to put pressure on us to change our way of thinking about family. He never wanted us to change our way of thinking about migration. He never wanted us to change our way of thinking about social issues,” Szijjártó said.

He also said Trump’s attitude toward Russia would be more welcomed by some parties today.

During Trump’s term in the White House, Russia did not start “any attack against anyone,” Szijjártó said.