A five-year-old girl died after being buried under tonnes of rubble when a landslide demolished her home during rain storms in Brazil.

Mayara Vitoria was pulled from the rubble after the family home – in a rural area of Ibitirama, Espirito Santo state – collapsed in a landslide on 21st December.

Local man Jose Martins recalled the harrowing moment he and some 10 others “picked her up, removed the concrete bar above her”.

He added: “I’ll never forget it.”

Another local man drove the critically injured girl to the nearest emergency department but she died after being admitted.

Her parents survived the disaster, but their current state of health is unclear.

The family’s neighbour, Natalia Dias Gomes, recalled the horror of seeing the disaster unfold.

She told local media: “I called for them, shouted for them, told them to come because it was coming down, going onto their veranda.

“They came and, while I was throwing a couple of their things on the veranda into the house, the avalanche came down and moved their house from its place.

“I saw everything happening.”

Video footage shows the shattered remains of the house after it was swept away in the landslide.

Concrete walls can be seen snapped in half and pieces of roofing are scattered around the site.

One local told media that the landslide had been caused by abandoned roadworks carried out by local authorities.

Jose Carlos said: “That ravine wasn’t there. They made it. The local council made that mistake.

“It’s been two years since the council stopped this project and I’ve been asking them to fix it, but they haven’t done so.”

The heavy rains that have been battering Espirito Santo had displaced 1,453 people as of the morning of 22nd December.