Carnival dreams go up in smoke in Rio

The show will go on despite more than 8,000 costumes being wiped out in a fire in the carnival district of Rio de Janeiro.

Four warehouses were damaged in the blaze which were also home to the Grande Rio Samba school and a museum.

For the workers, making the costumes for the world famous carnival was more than just a job.

One distressed woman said: “With this fire, everything has been lost, six months of work, all our hopes gone. We will have to start again from nothing with only one month to go before the carnival.”

Another worker said: “All of our work has been lost, along with our school which was lovely. But we are made of stern stuff. The people of Grande Rio have the character to fight on and there will be another procession.”

Despite workers trying to save what they could, very few costumes were recovered. Each year up to 70,000 tourists attend the carnival and the owner of the complex vowed he and his workers would not let them down.

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