Thousands moved from flood risk areas near Rio

BRAZILIAN officials yesterday started moving thousands of people out of at-risk areas near Rio in a flooding disaster that has left at least 727 people dead.

Ten teams of civil defence and environment officials were evacuating residents in outlying areas of Nova Friburgo, the hardest-hit town, said their commander, Colonel Roberto Robadey.

“We are telling people in the risky houses they have to go,” he told AFP.

“Before the disaster we had 6,000 people living in at-risk areas,” he explained, adding that definitive figures were not available.

Reactions from the inhabitants ranged from surprise to regret at being ordered to evacuate places that many of them had lived in all their lives, but most signed documents accepting the situation.

The terror of what they had lived through over the past week was evident.

The disaster that hit the Serrano mountain region near Rio de Janeiro on January 12 was classed as the deadliest natural catastrophe on record in Brazil.

Seasonal rains, normally heavy anyway, suddenly intensified unimaginably because of a cold front that dumped a month’s water in a few hours.

Houses illegally built on the hillsides, many of them by poor people occupying public land, were immediately destroyed, and added to the deadly mass speeding downhill. Wealthy properties were also submerged.

Towns and villages hit by the flooding and mudslides are awaiting millions of dollars in government aid as civilian and military personnel fan out to cut-off communities, providing rescue and supplies.

Faced with the first big challenge of her mandate started January 1, President Dilma Rousseff has released $60 million (€44.5m) of immediate aid.

The World Bank said on Tuesday it would lend Brazil another $485m for rebuilding and disaster prevention efforts, with the first tranche of $290m expected to be approved within weeks.