A shootout between cops and gangsters in Brazil left around 200 tourists trapped on a popular mountaintop in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, local media reported.
The terrified travelers had been trying to watch the sunrise from Morro Dois Irmãos, overlooking Ipanema Beach, when they heard a barrage of gunfire from the slum beneath the mountain, witnesses told Globo.
Police had been trying to catch members of the Comando Vermelho (“Red Command”) gang; authorities blocked off the trail to the mountain as the battle raged below the tourist hotspot.
Matilda Oliveiro, a visitor from Portugal, said she and her sister were waiting for the sun to crest over the sea when their tour guides told them to take cover.
“We had waited for sunrise and, suddenly, the guides asked us to sit down and we started hearing gunshots,” she told Globo.
“There was a lot of shooting and I didn’t know where it was coming from, if it was going to hit us, if it was close, we really didn’t know. We didn’t know where it was coming from,” Estefânia Andrade, a civil engineer, told the paper in Portugese.
The group was allowed to descend after around two hours, authorities said.
Police for the city of Rio and the state of Bahia were hunting drug kingpin Ednaldo Perenier Souza, a.k.a. “Dada,” who had been partying in the city.
Souza escaped through a secret passage before police raided a house party he was attending, but authorities managed to bag three of his alleged lieutenants.