Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

CEN/Monica Batista

This is the moment onlookers rush to help a driver stuck in a car beginning to sink in a flooded river by smashing a window and pulling him to safety.

The dramatic scene was recorded after the Rio Doce river burst its banks in the city of Governador Valadares in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais due to heavy rainfall.

In the video, a white pickup truck can be seen being dragged downstream by the flooded river with a driver inside.

Onlookers run alongside the river waiting for a chance to try to rescue the driver inside before the vehicle hits a tree, coming to a halt.

The pickup truck appears to be beginning to fill with water as onlookers rush to try to break the passenger’s side window, initially kicking the glass before one of them appears to pick up a rock and throw it at the window.

Onlookers can be heard screaming as the driver crawls out of the vehicle but falls into the water before being pulled to safety.

Local resident Luiz Felipe Souza, who broke the glass, said: “I was in the bath and heard shouts that a car had fallen into the water. Everybody started to help. When the car started getting closer to the edge of the river we managed to break the glass and pull him out.”

Souza said the unnamed driver was in a state of shock and taken to the Municipal Hospital of Governador Valadares.

The incident came as 15,000 people were left displaced by the flooded river, with the municipality declaring a state of emergency. No deaths have been reported.

There are no updates on the condition of the driver.

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