Brazilian city swamped by floodwaters

Raging torrents from a ruptured dam swamped a rural Brazilian city, killing four people and destroying at least 120 homes in a region already devastated by more than a month of floods.

Eleven people were missing, 80 suffered minor injuries and nearly 3,000 were forced from their homes.

Amateur video footage showed water inundating Cocal, with a population of about 25,000, after a section of the dam gave way under the weight of a reservoir bloated by rains.

Floods from those rains have killed nearly 60 and left hundreds of thousands homeless in a wide swathe of northern Brazil.

“It was like a tsunami,” governor Wellington Dias of north-eastern Piaui state said after touring the devastation zone.

Some residents climbed trees and scrambled on to rooftops after the floodwaters suddenly swelled a river.

“What I saw was frightening. It was a wall of water 65ft high, equivalent to a three-storey building,” Mr Dias said.

Authorities began evacuating families about two hours after the dam failed, but civil defence chiefs said 11 people were still missing and that rescue operations had been suspended until today.

Churches and other buildings were turned into shelters for the 2,953 people who were displaced.

The dead from the dam rupture included girls aged 10 and 12, a 72-year-old man and a 73-year-old woman, the state government said.

Downpours have battered northern and north-eastern Brazil since April, causing floods and mudslides in a region extending from the Amazon rainforest to the Atlantic Ocean. Authorities say 59 people have been killed and more than 423,000 were displaced.