Mudslides kill 100 in devastated Rio de Janeiro slums

Safe: a soldier carries a baby through the floods in the Campo Grande area of Rio
12 April 2012

Rivers of mud cascaded down hills in Rio de Janeiro and turned streets into raging torrents, killing 100 people.

Most of the deaths were caused by landslides which hit shacks in the favelas, slums built precariously on steep slopes.

Rio, host of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, came to a halt as Mayor Eduardo Paes urged workers to stay at home and ordered the closure of all schools.

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," he said.

"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."

Eleven inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours yesterday, and the forecast warned of more downpours. Authorities reported 104 people injured and 65 missing.

More mudslides threatened at least 10,000 homes in the city of six million people and about 1,200 people were left homeless.

Claudio Ribeiro, a 24-year-old taxi driver, spent eight hours stranded on a highway. "I have never seen anything like this," he said. "Tell me, how is this city supposed to host the Olympics? Look at this chaos!"

Mr da Silva said: "Rio de Janeiro is prepared to host the Olympics and the World Cup with a lot of tranquillity. It's not because of one catastrophe that we will think that it's going to happen every year, or all the time."

Rio 2016 officials said the rainfall was extremely unusual and could happen anywhere in the world.

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