More Rain Forecast for Brazil as Floods, Mudslides Kill 511 in Rio State.

Brazil’s most-deadly natural disaster may worsen
as heavy rain in coming weeks threatens to cause
more mudslides and hinder rescue efforts after at
least 511 people died in Rio de Janeiro state.
Petropolis, Teresopolis and Nova Friburgo, cities
in the mountainous area about 40 miles north of
Rio, were the hardest hit this week as heavy rain
sent earth and rocks rolling down hillside
communities and swollen rivers swept away
houses. A cold front stationed in the region and a
weather system bringing humidity from the
Amazon will continue to produce persistent rain,
Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry said.
“Moderate to heavy rainfall will continue over the
next few weeks, and that will probably aggravate
the situation, because the soil is totally soaked, ”
said Felipe Farias, a meteorologist at Brazil’s
weather forecast and climatic studies center, or
CPTEC. Rain began falling again in the area early
today, Farias said.
The region has already seen the largest rainfall
since 1967, according to the government ’s Inmet
meteorology agency. Teresopolis, the largest and
hardest-hit city, where at least 226 people died,
absorbed 259 millimeters of rain in the past 10
days, while the average rainfall for the month of
January is 290 millimeters, according to Inmet.
The fruit-producing city may get 80 to 100
millimeters more rain through Sunday, said
Brazil ’s National Institute for Space Research,
known as INPE.
Supermarkets in Rio de Janeiro were reporting
shortages of produce this morning.
Entirely Rebuilt
Nova Friburgo, a city founded by German
immigrants that became a textile industry hub,
will need to be entirely rebuilt, Rio de Janeiro
governor Sergio Cabral said in a press conference
yesterday. At least 225 died in the town,
according to the state ’s health and civil defense
department. In Petropolis, a town named after
Brazilian monarch Pedro II, who built his
summer palace there in 1845, at least 39 people
died.
President Dilma Rousseff spoke in public for the
first time since taking office Jan. 1 after surveying
the rescue effort in Rio de Janeiro yesterday. She
said decades of poor government planning that
allowed poor people to build ramshackle homes
on unsafe mountainsides was partly to blame for
the tragedy.
“We saw regions where mountains fell apart,”
Rousseff told reporters yesterday. “Housing in
high-risk areas is the rule, not the exception” in
Brazil. Rousseff authorized 700 million reais ($418
million) in aid to fund relief and rescue efforts.
Help for Victims
Victims will be allowed to withdraw money from
their government-run severance and disability
accounts, known as FGTS, to rebuild their homes
or relocate, Labor Minister Carlos Lupi said in
Brasilia yesterday.
Rio’s state government will help as many as
6,000 families that lost houses pay rent, will set
up two field hospitals in the area and is sending
7.3 metric tons of medication and other materials
to assist victims, Cabral said.
Erick Conolly de Carvalho, an economist at
insurance company Icatu Holding SA, lost eight
family members including three sons when the
house they had rented in an upscale district of
Petropolis was engulfed, according to the city ’s
civil defense agency.

Source: Http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-14/more-rain-forecast-for-brazil-as-floods-mudslides-kill-511-in-rio-state.html