Joelma Building · After the Fire, Nobody Moved Back In

In 1974 the Joelma Building in São Paulo caught fire when the air-conditioning wiring short-circuited. There was no fire escape, many people jumped from the windows, and close to two hundred died.

Afterwards the building acquired a reputation for being haunted: people heard weeping and knocking, and some saw a figure standing in a corridor on the thirteenth floor. Other institutions took the building over, and in 2018 it burned again.

People nearby say the building has bad luck. The investigation records are clear: it was never the building that was at fault.

Haunted Ruins / São Paulo · Brazil / 1974