Grieving families gathered today to bury 12 children gunned down in the halls of their Rio de Janeiro school, an unheard-of act of school violence which left stunned Brazilians struggling for answers.

Brazilian rescue workers struggled to find survivors from another mudslide today as the death toll from this week's storms hit at least 147.

A massive power failure blacked out Brazil’s two largest cities and other parts of Latin America’s biggest nation for more than two hours last night, leaving millions of people in the dark after a huge hydroelectric dam suddenly went off-line.