At least 95 dead in Rio floods
The heaviest rains in Rio de Janeiro’s history triggered landslides that killed at least 95 people as rising water turned roads into rivers and paralysed Brazil’s second-largest city.
The ground gave way in steep hillside slums, cutting red-brown paths of destruction through shantytowns.
Concrete and wooden homes were crushed and hurtled downhill, where they buried other structures.
The future host city of the Olympics and football World Cup ground to a near halt as Mayor Eduardo Paes urged workers to stay home and closed all schools. Most businesses were shuttered.
Eleven inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours, and more rain began falling early today.
Officials said potential mudslides threatened at least 10,000 homes in the city of six million people.
Mr Paes urged people in endangered areas to take refuge with family or friends and he said no one should venture out.
“It is not advisable for people to leave their homes,” said Mr Paes. “We want to preserve lives.”
He told the website of the newspaper O Globo that the rainfall was the most that Rio had ever recorded in such a short period.
The previous high was nine inches that fell on January 2, 1966.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged Brazilians to pray for the rain to stop.
“This is the greatest flooding in the history of Rio de Janeiro, the biggest amount of rain in a single day,” Mr Silva told reporters in Rio. “And when the man upstairs is nervous and makes it rain, we can only ask him to stop the rain in Rio de Janeiro so we can go on with life in the city.”
A representative for the Rio de Janeiro fire department, which was coordinating rescue efforts, said 95 people were known dead and 100 were injured.
Most of the victims were from Rio’s hillside shantytowns whose homes were buried under tons of mud and rubble.
“We expect the death toll to rise,” said the official.
Thousands of motorists were stranded on highways blocked by rising water.
