BRAZIL,AUSTRALIA FLOOD

BRISBANE: Heavy rain prompted new flood warnings in Australia even as thousands of volunteers cleaned up the gooey mess coating homes and streets in its third-largest city Saturday.

Four states had flood warnings due to overflowing rivers and rain, while Queensland worked to recover from its deadly, weekslong disaster. Large parts of the vast state are still under water and some places are still on alert for flooding. In Brisbane, the water that swamped entire neighborhoods has mostly receded, leaving behind a thick, putrid sludge.

About 7,000 residents joined 600 military personnel in what was dubbed ‘Salvation Saturday’ to shovel, mop and sweep away the mess after the Brisbane River overflowed earlier this week.

Mayor Campbell Newman praised the overwhelming turnout. ‘Everybody rolls up their sleeves in this town,’ Newman said. The volunteers were given mops, garbage bags and cleaning supplies before being bused to the areas of Brisbane most in need.

Survivors of mudslides that killed more than 555 people are growing frustrated, saying Brazil’s government has fallen short in rescuing victims still stranded on remote hillsides and finding the bodies of the dead.
On the fourth night since torrential rains sent avalanches of mud and boulders smashing through communities in the lush mountains outside Rio de Janeiro, many people were still begging officials for aid late Friday. Many also took it upon themselves to search for their dead and help out the living.
‘The ones I’ve seen go up there and really make the effort are all people from here,’ said Sergio Joaquin de Jesus, 48, a construction worker who had just donated blood and was rounding up a crew of co-workers to dig for bodies Saturday morning. ‘Imagine, human beings up there, with no food, no water, nowhere to sleep, in this weather. They’re living like dogs,’ he said. ‘Where is the government? What are they still waiting for?’
The military said that it was sending 11 helicopters and 500 personnel to help approximately 800 rescuers from fire departments and the state civil defence agency who were struggling to reach stricken areas in an incessant rain. The army and navy also pledged heavy digging machinery, ambulances and generators - the last essential to continue the rescue effort in the dark. Low-hanging rain clouds prevented the helicopters from flying in, however, and the military promised it would try again Saturday. Survivors did what they could.
After failing to find his other children, the 31-year-old ranch hand built a gurney from scrap wood, carried his son’s body down a mudslide-wrecked slope before dawn Friday and buried him in a homemade coffin. Then Perfista waited with a crowd in the rain outside the Teresopolis morgue for a chance to plead with officials to help him continue his search. He clutched plastic-covered pictures of his three other children: a chubby 1-year-old and two smiling girls, ages 6 and 10.

Survivors of mudslides that killed at least 537 people in a mountainous area north of Rio de Janeiro streamed into the centre of Teresopolis on Friday.

Amauri Souza, a 38-year-old who helped Perfista carry his son’s body, said a few helicopters had reached isolated areas, but ‘they’re only taking down the wounded.’ He said officials were not dropping off body bags or food or water, adding that he feared the consequences if aid did not arrive soon.

‘The water is rotten, but people are forced to drink it. There is no food. I had meat in my house, but it’s all gone bad,’ Souza said. Officials fear the death toll could rise once remote areas are reached. Authorities did not offer an estimate on the missing, but local reports put it in the hundreds.

There is no central repository of information about survivors and missing people, said Carla Monica Tomazetto, a city worker using a microphone to call out the names of those being sought by relatives just outside a shelter for those who lost their homes.

Teresopolis, a city of 163,000 people next to a national park, sits in a land of thickly forested slopes and sheer mountain peaks, and is a chief training site for Brazil’s national soccer team. It’s home to many ornate weekend homes where the wealthy of Rio escape the summer heat to enjoy horseback riding and other luxuries.

worlds climate change now

NASA said on January 13, 2011 that a particularly strong La Nina weather pattern of cooler water temperatures is fueling heavy rains and floods in Australia, Sri Lanka and Brazil. “This La Niña has strengthened for the past seven months, and is one of the most intense events of the past half century,” said Climatologist Bill Patzert of NASA/JPL. Australia’s third-largest city Brisbane was turned into a “war zone” with whole suburbs under water and infrastructure smashed as the worst flood in decades hit 30,000 properties. Officials said, the number of people killed in Sri Lanka’s monsoon flooding and mudslides have risen to 27 with more than a million people still displaced by the devastating disaster. In Brazil, authorities have stated that more than a thousand people have been left without homes and 71 lost their lives in Teresopolis alone.

Brazil flood update

Days after floodwaters and surging waves of mud killed more than 440 people, grief was palpable in this lush area now scarred red and brown where waterlogged soil had pushed downhill, knocking away anything in its path.
But the accounts of loss were leavened by one high-drama rescue.
“I thought I was going to die,” said Ilair Pereira de Souza, a 53-year-old woman who had a miraculous escape when neighbors on a nearby balcony threw her a rope.

“Help me, help me,” she pleaded, in scenes replayed throughout the day on Brazilian television.

She grabbed for the rope, and disappeared underneath the muddy waters, before reappearing, clinging to the slim lifeline, but without her dog Beethoven, which she had been clutching in her arms
“If I had tried to save him, I would have died. The poor thing. He stayed for a moment looking me in the eyes, and then he was swept away.” In Teresopolis, one mountain town devastated by the mudslides, the atmosphere was mournful as the extent of the disaster became apparent.

Nearby, a long line had formed of families waiting to collect bodies of kin, while around them workers wearing masks to shield from the stench staffed the reception and accompanied those  toys and pathetic piles of possessions that represented all they had left.
“I need to know how she is,” Rodrigues wailed.
Edmar Da Rosa, a 44-year-old laborer whose face was badly lacerated, looked lost and unable to comprehend the deaths of family members.
He said a retaining wall fell on part of his house that he shared with his wife, three children and a grandson.
“My wife died. My grandson ended up dying. And the others are hurt,” he said.
A few meters (feet) away, 59-year-old Joao de Lima clutched a doll with desolation written on his face. “I lost my four daughters and everything I had,” he said softly.

Brazil flood death toll tops 500

Rescuers are searching through layers of mud for survivors and bodies after heavy rains caused landslides and torrents to slice through three towns near Rio de Janeiro, killing at least 500 people.

Walls of thick, muddy gunge cascaded past apartment blocks in several towns, flowing into single-storey homes and overturning cars as they surged down the hills sweeping along everything in their path.

Freakish storms early Wednesday (local time) in the mountainous area just north of Rio de Janeiro dumped the equivalent of a month's rain in just a few hours, sending mudslides slicing through towns and hamlets, destroying homes, roads and bridges and knocking out telephone and power lines.
Local officials and media in the worst affected towns of Novo Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis put the death toll at 432.

President Dilma Rousseff, clad in black rubber boots, walked the mud-covered cobblestone streets of Novo Friburgo, where 201 deaths were recorded.

The death toll was expected to rise further as rescuers arrived in remote hamlets, many cut off to all but helicopter access.

Tropical rains, common at this time of year, intensified as a cold front moved in, unleashing the tragedy before dawn, while families slept.

"In eight hours... it rained as much as for the entire month," said Paulo Canedo, a hydrologist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

The deluge "caused avalanches of rocks and soil that carried everything down with them, picking up houses," he said.

As weather forecasters warned of more rain in the hours and days ahead, rescuers aided by desperate residents clawed through rubble and mud looking for survivors or bodies.

GloboNews television said 175 people had died in Teresopolis, while officials in Petropolis counted 39 dead.

Another 17 bodies were discovered Thursday in a village called Sumidouro.

Churches and police stations were turned into makeshift morgues, the smell of decomposing corpses heavy in the warm air. Thousands of survivors took refuge in shelters.

But among the despair were a few triumphs.

The scenes of crumbled towns and the stench of death transformed the Serrana region, a popular historical getaway for wealthy Rio residents seeking cooler temperatures.

The disaster also provided the first big test for Ms Rousseff, who only took power on January 1.

Her government has released hundreds of millions of dollars in initial emergency aid and sent seven tons of medical supplies.

The last major natural disaster in Brazil was in March 1967, when mudslides killed 300 people in a coastal town called Caraguatatuba, Brazilian media said.

By way of comparison, Brazil recorded 473 deaths for all of last year from heavy rains.

350 peopel killed in curent flooding

In the mountain towns of Nova Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis, the reported death tolls are at least 168, 152 and 36 respectively, Brazilian media reported
Heavy rain began falling again early on Thursday as rescuers resumed their search and is expected to continue throughout much of the day.

The collapse of electricity and communications systems, combined with the destruction of many roads and bridges, has severely hampered the rescue work.

800 rescuers are conducting searches and the Brazilian navy is sending a field hospital to the area.
Morgues in the affected towns were full, with churches and police stations receiving bodies.
Officials in Brazil's civil defence department have warned there could be hundreds more bodies yet to be recovered in Teresopolis alone, the Globo media organisation reported.
One area of Teresopolis, Campo Grande, remains cut off entirely and is yet to be reached by any rescuers. It is feared 150 people may be buried there.
Sixteen more bodies were found there early on Thursday, but the most dramatic rise was in Nova Friburgo, where 48 more people were reported to have died.
Amid the death and destruction in Nova Friburgo there was one glimmer of hope: a six-month-old baby, reportedly named Nicholas, was found alive after 12 hours trapped in the rubble of a ruined building, reports said.


The heavy rains also killed 13 people in Sao Paulo state on Tuesday, bringing the total death toll in Brazil’s south to at least 270.
Hillsides and river banks in the picturesque Serrana region north of Rio buckled under the equivalent of a month’s rainfall in 24 hours, destroying houses and killing many people early Wednesday, rescue officials said.
Television images showed many houses buried in mud as desperate residents and rescue workers searched for survivors.
“There was no way of telling which house would fall. Rich and poor — everything was destroyed,” domestic worker Fernanda Carvalho was quoted as saying by the Globo network’s website.

The number of victims was expected to rise as rescuers find more bodies and reach more remote areas.

“Rescue teams are still arriving in the areas that have been worst affected,” he said, adding that about 1,000 people had been left homeless. “It’s the biggest catastrophe in the history of the town.”

Thousands Isolated

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff signed a decree releasing 780 million reais in reconstruction funds for the affected areas. She was due to fly over the region on Thursday.

Thousands of people in the region were isolated by the floodwaters and cut off from power and telephone contact.

The downpour caused at least one river to burst its banks, submerging cars and destroying houses in Teresopolis, television images showed.

Rio state Governor Sergio Cabral said in a statement he had asked the Navy for aircraft to take rescue crews and equipment to the region, which was partially cut off from Rio by road.

Buses and trucks were shown stranded on streets with floodwaters reaching up to their windows.