Rio de Janeiro’s carnival, a glittering, sequin-studded flesh festival, erupted Friday with the first famed samba school parades since Covid-19 hit Brazil.

After two years of face masks, social dancing, and death, a glittering sea of dancers, drummers, and multi-story floats reclaimed the “Sambadrome,” the iconic beach city’s carnival parade venue, which had been converted into a drive-through vaccination centre during the height of the health crisis.

The all-night parades by the city’s top samba schools on Friday and Saturday are the first since February 2020, signalling a watershed moment in hard-hit Brazil, where Covid-19 has claimed over 660,000 lives, second only to the United States.

“I´m just so happy. I think a lot of people are going to cry… including me,” said Ana Vieira, a 48-year-old geography teacher, who was wearing a giant, glistening white costume to parade for the Imperatriz samba school.

“Carnival is life. You can see the happiness on people´s faces after two long years staying home and missing it,” Vieira, who has been parading for 20 years, told AFP.

However, tragedy struck the festivities on Wednesday when an 11-year-old girl died after being injured in a float accident during a lower-level samba school parade contest.