Brazil celebrates the return of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival

Rio de Janeiro’s world-famous carnival celebrations has returned in its full-scale technicolour splendour for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The samba was playing, revellers were dancing and throughout the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, parties and pageantry filled the streets,” said the Associated Press, as an estimated 46m people from around the world descended on Brazil to join in the week-long festivities, which also take place in other cities such as Salvador, Recife and Sao Paulo.

Carnival celebrations officially kicked off last Friday and will run until tomorrow, with this year’s carnival a return to “fully fledged celebrations” of the kind not seen since before the pandemic.

Last year, Rio was forced to delay the event by two months but it eventually went ahead, with some restrictions. This year will share “some of the spirit of the 1919 edition” which took place soon after the Second World War and after an outbreak of the Spanish flu had claimed tens of thousands of lives in the country.

After years of restrictions and delays to the world’s biggest street party, Brazilians and tourists attending Carnival are expected to spend big. According to Reuters, the country’s head of tourism expects the festivities to generate “nearly $1 billion in business”, which, according to the news site, would represent “an all-time high”.