[Faline]

DEVASTATING mudslides in Brazil smashed into villages near Rio de Janeiro killing at least 348 people.

Driving rains sent tons of rusty red earth sliding into the mountain towns of Teresopolis and Petropolis.

Hundreds of family members were crowded around the towns' morgues today waiting to identify bodies.



More corpses were laid out on a street in front to the police station, covered by blankets.

Fresh rains had hit the town overnight, though no new mudslides were reported.

Rescuers used heavy machinery, shovels and bare hands in attempts to find survivors.

At least 50 people are still missing and one neighbourhood hit by slides in Teresopolis had not been reached yet by authorities.

In a neighbouring town, fire-fighters rescued a 25-year-old man who gripped on to his 6-month-old son for 15 hours until they were both pulled out alive.

The man's wife and mother-in-law were feared dead.

The mountains saw 10 inches of rain fall less than 24 hours. More heavy rain is forecast through the weekend.

Floodwaters continued to gush down the mountains for hours after rainstorms ended Wednesday.

Survivors waded through waist-high water, carrying what belongings they could, trying to reach higher ground.

Many tried desperately to find relatives, though phone lines were out in the region and many people were still missing hours after the rain stopped.

Teresopolis resident Angela Marina de Carvalho Silva said: "There are so many disappeared - and so many that will probably never be found.

Carvalho Silva managed to get to 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.

Carvalho Silva, who fears she may have lost 15 relatives in the disaster continued: "There was nothing we could do. It was hell.

Her husband Sidney Silva said: It's over. There's nothing. The water came down and swept everything away."

In the neighbouring mountain town of Nova Friburgo, at least 107 people died, according to statement from the Rio state civil defence department.

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Among the dead were four fire-fighters who were helping in the rescue effort.

Three other fire-fighters were listed as missing after their fire truck was hit by a mudslide.

With the new disasters, more than 300 people have died since Christmas across the south eastern portion Brazil.

President Dilma Rousseff signed a measure yesterday to hand over nearly £300million to towns in Rio and Sao Paulo states that were damaged during the recent rains.

The money will go to repairing infrastructure and preventing future disasters.

The president planned to fly over the most severely damaged areas on today.

[St. Geno]

Just noticed this section was added.
Sucks for Brazil though

[Pink.]

It is odd that these catastrophes are happening all over the world.

There is an "End Times" group that actually predicts the "end of the world" to be in late spring of 2010....not 12/21/2012 as the Mayan calendar, a Chinese calendar, and a predicted astrophysical alignment of galaxy.

[Viking64]

I was going to make a joke about drinking mudslides, but I'll pass.

[St. Geno]

Originally Posted by viking64 ↗

I was going to make a joke about drinking mudslides, but I'll pass.

mudslides are good till you get to the bottom of it

[Faline]

TERESOPOLIS, Brazil -- As night fell, barefoot volunteers dragged a generator and stadium lights into a town cemetery, where nearly 200 freshly dug graves lay open like wounds in the red clay soil, waiting for some of the hundreds killed by torrential rains.

Funerals already had been held all day as a light rain persisted Thursday: a sister laying her brother to rest, a man burying his 1-year-old niece in a small white casket, a mother who cried her 9-year-old son's name repeatedly as he was lowered into the earth.

Small, handmade white crosses identified only by numbers - the details would have to come later - dotted the desolate, sodden hilltop.

Dozens more funerals will come Friday and 300 more graves will be dug Saturday, said Vitor da Costa Soares, a city worker in charge of the cemetery.

"We'll make room. We have to. We'll stay up here until 10 p.m., midnight if we can, and we'll be here at 6 a.m. tomorrow," he said.

At least 476 people were known dead after heavy rains unleashed mudslides before dawn Wednesday, burying people as they slept. Survivors started digging for friends and relatives with their bare hands, kitchen utensils, whatever they could find as they waited for help in remote neighborhoods perched precariously on steep, washed-out hillsides.

In the remote Campo Grande neighborhood of Teresopolis, now accessible only by a perilous five-mile (eight-kilometer) hike through mud-slicked jungle, family members pulled the lifeless bodies of loved ones from the muck. They carefully laid the corpses on dry ground, covering them with blankets.
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A young boy cried out as his father's body was found: "I want to see my dad! I want to see my dad!"

Flooding and mudslides are common in Brazil when the summer rains come, but this week's slides were among the worst in recent memory. The disasters punish the poor, who often live in rickety shacks perched perilously on steep hillsides with little or no foundations. But even the rich did not escape the damage in Teresopolis, where large homes were washed away.

"I have friends still lost in all of this mud," said Carlos Eurico, a resident of Campo Grande, as he motioned to a sea of destruction behind him. "It's all gone. It's all over now. We're putting ourselves in the hands of God."

In the same area, Nilson Martins, 35, carefully held the only thing pulled out alive since dawn: a pet rabbit that had somehow remained pristinely white despite the mud.

"We're just digging around, there is no way of knowing where to look," he said. "There are three more bodies under the rubble over there. One seems to be a girl, no more than 16, dead, buried under that mud."

[Faline]

Some new pictures of the scenes in Brazil:
http://www.documentingreality.com/fo...1/#post1683968

[souris]

Saint Peter's all pissed about the lineups. Open a new till s.v.p.

[Iliketurtles]

Ty for these pics. i got some friends living in brazil..hope they are ok..

[Pink.]

UPDATE:
Brazil flood deaths top 800 with 400 still missing



Officials in Brazil say more than 800 people are now known to have died in floods and landslides in the south-east of the country this month.

More than 400 people are still missing after torrential rain caused whole hillsides to collapse.

The Brazilian government has said it will set up an early warning system to alert communities of impending danger.

The flooding is considered the worst natural disaster Brazil has ever experienced.

According to figures compiled by the newspaper O Globo, a third of all victims were under age.

The youngest fatality was a five-day-old baby buried in a mudslide in Nova Friburgo, the worst affected town with 324 dead.