Mudslides in Brazil kill 95 during record rains

Published 10:31 pm Tuesday, April 6, 2010

RIO DE JANEIRO — The heaviest rains in Rio de Janeiro’s history triggered landslides Tuesday that killed at least 95 people as rising water turned roads into rivers and paralyzed Brazil’s second-largest city.

The ground gave way in steep hillside slums, cutting red-brown paths of destruction through shantytowns. Concrete and wooden homes were crushed and hurtled downhill, only to bury other structures.

The city ground to a near halt as Mayor Eduardo Paes urged workers to stay home and closed all schools. Most businesses were shuttered.

Eleven inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours, and more rain was expected. Officials said potential mudslides threatened at least 10,000 homes in the city of 6 million people.

Paes told the Web site of the newspaper O Globo that the rainfall was the most that Rio had ever recorded in such a short period. The previous high was nine inches on Jan. 2, 1966.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged Brazilians to pray for the rain to stop.

“This is the greatest flooding in the history of Rio de Janeiro, the biggest amount of rain in a single day,” Silva told reporters in Rio. “And when the man upstairs is nervous and makes it rain, we can only ask him to stop the rain in Rio de Janeiro so we can go on with life in the city.”

A representative for the Rio de Janeiro fire department, which was coordinating rescue efforts, said 95 people were known dead and 100 more were injured. Most of the victims were from Rio’s hillside shantytowns whose homes were buried under tons of mud and rubble.

“We expect the death toll to rise,” the official said.