Samba schools perform at Brazil carnival parades

Some of Brazil's top samba schools performed during the carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo on Friday for the first time in two years.

Colourful floats and flamboyant dancers delighted tens of thousands jammed into Rio de Janeiro's iconic Sambadrome, putting on a delayed Carnival celebration after the pandemic halted the dazzling displays.

São Paulo also kicked off its Carnival parade Friday evening. Both cities' parades usually take place in February or March, but their mayors in January jointly announced they were postponing Carnival by two months due to concerns about the proliferation of the omicron variant.

Brazil confirmed its first cases of the coronavirus in mid-March 2020, just after that year's Carnival festivities came to an end. Rio's Sambadrome has been home to the parade since the 1980s, and is a symbol of Brazil's Carnival festivities.

During the pandemic, it was a shelter for more than 400 homeless people and also served as a vaccination station.