Brazilian mudslides kill up to 39 people

FIREFIGHTERS in the Brazilian town of Angra Dos Reis worked through the night searching for bodies in the mud that swept down from the surrounding hills, burying houses and killing at least 39 people.

Almost 2,000 people were forced to leave their homes by the mudslides and floods, which were triggered by torrential rains over the weekend. Civil defence officials said it was the worst disaster to hit the town of about 60,000 people, 100 miles west of Rio de Janeiro.

"The numbers could rise a little but we don't expect it to grow much more than this," said Colonel Sergio Simoes of the local fire department, which led the search for survivors and victims.

In 24 hours, the town was pounded with more than five inches of rain nearly as much as the average rainfall for two weeks, the National Weather Institute in Rio said.

In the poor district of Areal, the Japuida River broke its banks and caused a hillside to slip away before dawn on Monday, creating a mudslide that covered at least 10 houses.

Most of the houses were little more than shacks built on hillsides. The slide of red mud ripped up trees and buried entire families, residents said.

Carlos Alberto Oliveira Porto, a 37-year-old taxi driver, heard the roar at about 2am. "I heard a big noise, and my neighbour said, 'Let's run because death is coming down," he said. "The water came and carried me, my son, my wife."

Mr Porto said he returned later to find a grisly scene. "I found legs in my back yard," he said. "Children died. Lots of people died."

Firefighters from neighbouring areas joined the search for victims and tried to persuade hundreds of families in high risk areas to leave their homes and go to shelters improvised in public schools.

The town's mayor, Fernando Jordao, declared a state of public calamity as the rain continued to fall late yesterday.

"It is not torrential rain like earlier, but it's still raining," he said. "I have never seen anything like it in 20 years in Angra dos Reis."

Mr Jordao also asked government energy authorities to shut down the town's two nuclear plants, Angra One and Angra Two, on the grounds that the exit roads were closed and the area could not be evacuated in an emergency. Eletronuclear, which run the two plants, said they were operating normally and not affected by the rain.