Death toll tops 500 as families flee floodwaters

(Rex Features)

With rain still falling yesterday, rescue teams and military units were struggling to find victims and assist desperate survivors amid the gushing waters and oozing mud of eastern Brazil, as the death toll from some of the country's worst flooding in decades topped 500.

Landslides that began before dawn on Wednesday in mountain towns and villages in Rio de Janeiro State buried countless homes and their residents. Officials warned that with hundreds still missing and some areas still cut off because of washed-away roads, the final death toll could be much higher.

It is already the worst natural disaster to hit Brazil since flooding and slides in 1967 cased the deaths of 785 people. The worst affected areas are in rugged terrain around the city of Teresopolis about 40 miles north of Rio.

The catastrophe is an early test for Brazil's newly elected president, Dilma Rousseff, who toured the area on Thursday. "We are going to take firm action," she promised local residents.

But those who have reached the devastated areas report scenes of increasing desperation. Cemeteries are filled with bodies, hospitals are overwhelmed and about 3,000 people driven from their homes by the rains are sheltering in schools and other public buildings. Authorities were meanwhile ordering the evacuation of another 5,000 families from homes threatened by the rushing waters.

Early summer in Brazil is often marked by flooding and lives had already been lost this year in other regions. But with the death toll rising, the authorities will come under pressure to explain an apparent lack of preparedness. They will also come under renewed criticism for failing to prohibit the building of homes, some without foundations, in areas that are prone to landslides.

But while it is the poor who are suffering the brunt of this fresh disaster, some more prosperous neighbourhoods in Teresopolis and other nearby towns have also been swept away, residents said.