SEVERE floods triggered by torrential downpours have killed at least six people in southern Brazil and driven thousands from their homes.

RECOMMENDATIONS have been made by the EU’s Food and Veterinary Office to authorities in Brazil to address shortcomings identified last October during assessment of the possibility of live cattle exports to the EU from the country’s southern state of Santa Catarina.

Hungry flood survivors looted supermarkets and emergency crews tried to get aid to nearly 80,000 people driven from their homes as rain-spawned mudslides and overflowing rivers killed at least 97 people and isolated cities in southern Brazil.

Rescue workers found dozens of bodies as they dug desperately through the wreckage of homes engulfed by mudslides in southern Brazil, boosting the death toll from rain-spawned hillside collapses and floods to 84.

More than 200 oil-slicked penguins have washed up dead on the beaches of a popular Brazilian resort, and officials say they are searching for a cause.

Rescue crews scoured densely forested mountains in southern Brazil today for signs of a Roman Catholic priest who vanished over the Atlantic Ocean with a cluster of helium balloons.

A ROMAN Catholic priest who floated off under 1,000 helium party balloons has gone missing off the coast of Brazil.

Police are not discarding the possibility that human trafficking played a role in the disappearance of a former Miss Brazil who hasn’t contacted her family in nearly six months.

A spiraling storm lashed the coast of southern Brazil, killing two people, injuring at least 35 others and damaging thousands of homes, civil defence officials said today.

Bird Town overcame a stumble at the start to land the Grade One Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs last night.

At least four people have died in Brazil after two days of heavy rain triggered mudslides and flash floods in the south of the country.