Buried alive by mudslides

The power was out, but lightning flashes illuminated the horror as villagers watched neighbours' homes vanish under a wall of mud and water, turning neighbourhoods into graveyards. Survivors dug at the earth with their bare hands yesterday, but all they found were bodies.

It was a scene of muddy destruction in Brazilian mountain towns north of Rio, where at least 482 people were killed when torrential rains unleashed mudslides in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, burying people alive as they slept. Officials would not venture guesses on how many people were missing - but fears were high that the death toll could sharply rise.

In the remote Campo Grande neighbourhood of Teresopolis, now accessible only by a perilous 8km hike through mud-slicked jungle, family members pulled the bodies of loved ones from the muck. They carefully laid the corpses on dry ground, covering them with blankets.

A young boy cried out as his father's body was found: "I want to see my dad! I want to see my dad!"

Flooding and mudslides are common in Brazil when the summer rains come, but this week's slides were among the worst in recent memory.

The disasters unduly punish the poor, who often live in rickety shacks perched perilously on steep hillsides with little or no foundations. But even the rich did not escape the damage in Teresopolis, where large homes were washed away.

"I have friends still lost in all of this mud," said Carols Eurico, a resident of the city's Campo Grande neighbourhood, as he motioned to a sea of destruction behind him. "It's all gone. It's all over now. We're putting ourselves in the hands of God."

In the same area, Nilson Martins, 35, carefully held the only thing pulled out alive since dawn: a pet rabbit that had somehow remained pristinely white despite the mud.

"We're just digging around, there is no way of knowing where to look," he said. "There are three more bodies under the rubble over there. One seems to be a girl, no more than 16, dead, buried under that mud."

The hundreds of homes washed away in the neighbourhood were turned inside out, their plumbing and electrical wires exposed. Children's clothes littered the earth, cars were tossed upside down into thickets. An eerie quiet prevailed as people searched for life.

The sounds of digging, with sticks and hands, were occasionally punctuated by shouts as another corpse was located.

Conceicao Salomao, a doctor co-ordinating relief efforts at a makeshift refuge inside a gymnasium in central Teresopolis, said about 750 people were staying there yesterday and about 1000 people had sought treatment in the past day.

One danger she worried about was leptospirosis, a waterborne bacterial disease.

"The hospitals around here are overflowing. The army and navy are setting up field hospitals to help," she said. "The worst is the feeling of impotence. We do what we can, but there are so many people."

Rio state's civil defence department said on its website that about 14,000 people had been driven from their homes.

A further 37 people have died in floods and mudslides since Christmas in other parts of southeastern Brazil - 16 in Minas Gerais state north of Rio and 21 in Sao Paulo state.

Nineteen-year-old Geisa Carvalho and her mother were awakened on Thursday by a tremendous rumble as tonnes of muck slid down a granite rock face onto their Teresopolis neighbourhood of Caleme.

The power was out, but by lightning flashes they could see the torrent of mud and water rushing just a few metres from their home - and the remnants of their neighbours' houses swept far down a hill.

"We were like zombies, covered in mud, in the dark, digging and digging" Carvalho said.

Only a few rescuers had managed to hike to Caleme by yesterday and they had only shovels and machetes - not the heavier equipment needed to hunt for survivors.

Residents said they had no food, water or medicine, and many made the long walk for help to the centre of Teresopolis, about 65km north of Rio.

Morgues were full and bodies covered in blankets were laid out in streets.

Officials said the area hit by slides had seen 25cm of rain in less than 24 hours. More rain is forecast through the weekend.

Survivors across the region were seen wading through waist-high water, carrying what belongings they could, trying to reach higher ground. President Dilma Rousseff flew by helicopter over the region yesterday and the Health Ministry said it was sending seven tonnes of medicine, enough to treat 45,000 people for a month.

Rousseff said the destruction was an act of God - but she also said people died because homes were illegally built in areas prone to slides.

480+
dead after floods and mudslides

14,000 driven from their homes

25cm of rain on affected area in 24 hours

- AP