The Asutralian
Death stalks rain-hit Brazil
- AP
- January 15, 2011
QUEENSLANDERS were not the only ones inundated around the world, but at least they were spared the death toll of Brazil.
The huge city of Sao Paulo nearly came to a halt as flooding blocked traffic in some of the city's main thoroughfares.
Brazil has been severely affected by the rains this year and authorities say the number of people left homeless by flooding has surpassed 100,000 in four southeastern states.
Driving rain sent tonnes of rusty red earth sliding into mountain towns, killing at least 257 people by Thursday and leaving dozens more missing.
About 100 people are believed to have died in Novo Friburgo, a tourist destination on the cusp of the Atlantic Forest. It was impossible to confirm those figures immediately because roads had been cut and telephone lines brought down.
In the hardest-hit town of Teresopolis, where the local civil defence agency said at least 130 people died, hundreds of family members crowded around the morgue waiting to identify bodies.
How many were saved was not known. In one town, firefighters rescued a 25-year-old man who held his six-month-old son for 15 hours until they were both pulled out alive.Before rescue attempts were called off because of darkness, searchers used heavy machinery, shovels and bare hands trying to find survivors.
Heavy rains and mudslides kill hundreds of people across Brazil each year, especially during the summer. The worst hit are the poor, whose rickety homes are often built on steep slopes with weak foundations, if any.
In Teresopolis, 65km north of Rio de Janeiro, deluges filled creeks and the overflows swept over already waterlogged mountainsides.
Brick and wooden shacks built on hillsides stripped of trees were washed away in surging earth and water, leaving behind only a long trail of mud.
The mountains received 26cm of rain in less than 24 hours.
Floodwaters continued to gush down the mountains for hours after rainstorms. Survivors waded through waist-high water, carrying what belongings they could, trying to reach higher ground.
Many tried desperately to find relatives, though phone service was out in the region and many people were still missing hours after the rain stopped.
"There are so many disappeared and so many that will probably never be found," says Angela Marina de Carvalho Silva, a resident of Teresopolis who feared she may have lost 15 relatives. "There was nothing we could do. It was hell."
Carvalho Silva took refuge in a neighbour's house on high ground with her husband and daughter, and watched the torrential rain carry away cars, tree branches and animals and rip apart the homes of friends and family.
In the neighbouring mountain town of Nova Friburgo, at least 107 people died, according to an emailed statement from the Rio state civil defence department. Among the dead were four firefighters who were helping in the rescue effort.
With the new disasters, more than 300 people have died since Christmas across the southeastern portion Brazil.
The country's new President, Dilma Rousseff, signed a measure sending $US461 million to towns in Rio and Sao Paulo states that were damaged during the recent rains. The President planned to fly over the most severely damaged areas.
The death toll in the Teresopolis region was expected to rise as firefighters reached remote valleys and steep mountainsides where neighbourhoods were destroyed.
Heavy rainfall also caused havoc earlier in Minas Gerais state north of Rio, where 16 people died in the past month and dozens of communities are in a state of emergency.
"It's like a horror film. Houses, cars were carried away by torrents of water. It was terrifying," said one woman aged 55 in the mountains near Rio. "I walked on something soft and saw it was the body of a woman covered in mud. She had her arm over her face like she was trying to protect herself."
In Sao Paulo, flooding paralysed main thoroughfares in the capital city since Sunday and 21 people died in collapsed homes, mudslides and flooding throughout the state.
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