NITEROI, Brazil, April 10, (AFP) - Exhausted Brazilian rescuers faced another day of grim searching through a wall of mud Saturday as hopes fade of finding survivors, with almost 400 people now feared dead after some of the worst rains in decades.
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| Firefighters walk over mud after a landslide over around 60 houses at Vicoso Jardim neighborhood in Niteroi, 15 miles away from Rio de Janeiro, April 9. REUTERS |
Civil Defense officials said late Friday that at least 219 had been killed across Rio de Janeiro state since Monday when some of the heaviest rains in half a century unleashed floods and mudslides.
The heavy rain also forced some 50,000 people to leave their homes, officials said, either because their homes were damaged or because they were ordered to leave due to fear of fresh landslides.
Rescue teams have pulled out scores of bodies since part of a hillside collapsed on Wednesday, sliding onto a shantytown built on a landfill in Niteroi, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, burying an estimated 200 people. |
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