This is The Guardian.

Today, Rio's bloodiest day.

That was a very strange day. It was one of those days where you wake up with a start and you think, my God, something's happened. It's in that slight days. I answered my phone and it was a photographer

friend who, to my surprise, was in Villa Cruzeiro, a favela in North Rio, having received a tip

in the middle of the night and said, Tom, you've got to get here now.

There are dozens and dozens of bodies being carried down from the hills.

So I jumped in the shower, had a cup of coffee, and we drove in a convoy with the emergency lights flashing

and drove very, very slowly through the darkness into the main square of Villa

Cruzeiro, which sits at the foot of the Pena complex.

Oh, my God.

Tom Phillips, the Guardian's Latin America correspondent, has lived in Rio for years now.

And he's often reported on violent clashes

between the police and the drug gangs that dominate the favelas.

But this day, last October, it was different.

Oh my God, there's the bodies.

There's corpus that they did out in it.

Good on there, see the feet coming out from under the plastic.

They're just lying out there in the street.

And as I arrived, I could hear the sound of engines and motorbikes

and pick up tracks as they came down from the hills above, bringing more

and more bodies.

People here are saying that they think there may be more than 100, maybe more than 150 people

...