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Flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rain has killed at least 109 people in southern Brazil over the past week, Civil Defense officials said on Saturday. The toll, 10 more than reported Friday, is likely to rise because at least 19 people are still missing, officials said. Heavy rain in the state of Santa Clara has affected 1.5 million people in the region and forced some 79,000 to flee their homes, officials said.
Local authorities ordered a curfew in some of the most heavily affected areas to stop looters from breaking into stores searching for food. Front-pages of the leading Brazilian newspapers throughout the week showed pictures of area residents inside supermarkets in waist-deep water searching for food and drinking water. Civil defense officials said Saturday that over the past week they have distributed some 515 tonnes of food. There are still parts of the flooded region cut off from land access and reachable only via helicopter. Health Ministry workers and Civil Defense officials are to set up this weekend a field hospital near Itajai, one of the most hard-hit areas, that can receive up to 400 people a day. Authorities feared an outbreak of diseases such as leptospirosis, spread by rat urine. |
