The toll was a jump from the 11 reported by the same office earlier in the day.
Seventeen people are also missing, seven injured, and some 3,500 have been forced to move in more following a series of landslides and house collapses, Civil Defense officials said.
Rainfall in the region has been the heaviest since records were first kept 110 years ago, the National Institute of Meteorology said. In one 24-hour period, state capital Belo Horizonte recorded 172 millimeters (almost seven inches) of rain.
Forecasters said the rain is expected to continue through Saturday.
The deluge coincided with the first anniversary of the dam collapse in the Minas Gerais town of Brumadinho, where 11 people are still listed as missing.
An accumulation of water and a lack of drainage caused the tailings dam rupture on January 25, 2019, according to a report commissioned by the mining firm Vale.
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