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41 dead, up to 1,000 missing in Brazil floods
by Staff Writers
Brasilia (AFP) June 22, 2010


Ghana flood toll rises as more bodies picked up
Accra (AFP) June 22, 2010 - Torrential rains in southern Ghana have killed 30 people in some of the worst flooding in a decade, rescuers said on Tuesday after finding six more bodies. "The death toll has rise from 24 to 30," Kofi Portuphy, coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) told AFP. The six bodies were picked up in Greater Accra, one of the three regions hardest hit by the weekend flooding. Minister of Roads and Higways Joe Gidisu described the floods as a "national crisis".

"Never in the last 15 years have we seen this kind flooding especially in the greater Accra region, where roads have been washed away and bridges collapsed, leading to loss of lives and property," Gidisu told AFP. NADMO has offered shelter for several hundreds of displaced in Central region and the industrial port city of Tema. "We are confronted with logistics challenges, we need outboard motors and other life saving equipment in order to work effectively, but as it is now we are handicapped," said Portuphy. Three mainly southern regions, including the coastal capital Accra, are most affected by the floods, triggered by heavy rains that pounded the country on Sunday and cut off electrity and water supplies.

Raging floods in northeastern Brazil have killed at least 41 people and left as many as 1,000 missing, officials said Tuesday, while firefighters described entire towns being wiped off the map.

Dramatic television pictures showed survivors scrambling to rooftops to avoid being swept away, clinging desperately to lines of rope as rescuers in helicopters rushed to pluck them from the muddy floodwaters.

The death toll looked set to rise with more heavy rain forecast for Wednesday and the authorities giving estimates of the missing ranging from several hundred to 1,000.

"Up until the early afternoon we had 26 confirmed dead in Alagoas and more than 1,000 people missing," the governor of the poor coastal state Teotonio Vilela Filho told government news wire Agencia Brasil.

"But we are worried because bodies are starting to appear on the beaches and the rivers."

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced late Tuesday that he would be back to overfly the area on Thursday, as Defense Minister Nelson Jobim has done, the official news agency Agencia Brasil reported.

Officials later raised the toll in Alagoas to 29, while a civil defense officials said another 12 fatalities were confirmed in the larger neighboring state of Pernambuco.

Almost 100,000 people in the two states were left without a home or forced to evacuate, while some towns were completely cut off as powerful torrents collapsed bridges and swamped roads and railway lines, officials said.

Rooftops and church bell towers were the only structures visible above massive brown expanses of floodwater that only looked set to rise in the coming days.

A firefighters' spokesman told AFP entire towns had been "wiped off the map" after the Mundau river burst its banks in the town of Uniao dos Palmares in Alagoas.

In the separate town of Palmares in the neighboring state of Pernambuco, a woman who lost her home sobbed as she told Globonews television: "It destroyed our city. It destroyed everything."

Jose Mariano, whose house in nearby Cachanga was waterlogged, said: "It was really tough here. We had a refrigerator and an armoire at my brother's house for safe keeping and the water came in and just kept rising."

Five Air Force helicopters ferried aid to those stranded by the flooding, while a military plane also delivered some 14 tonnes of donated food, medicine, drinking water and mattresses.

Lula held a crisis cabinet meeting that included ministers and the governors of the affected states.

Afterwards, officials announced 55 million dollars in emergency aid, half of which had already been delivered to the state governments.

Governor Padilha said the priority was to get emergency drinking water and food to the flooded areas, and restore electricity.

In April, flooding and landslides triggered by torrential rain killed at least 229 people in the Rio de Janeiro area.

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SHAKE AND BLOW
Thousands at risk from dyke breach as China flood toll rises
Beijing (AFP) June 22, 2010
Chinese authorities rushed Tuesday to evacuate 12,000 people threatened by a dyke breach as the death toll from widespread flooding across the nation's south rose to nearly 200. China's President Hu Jintao called for all-out rescue efforts in response to the dyke breach in Jiangxi province, as torrential rains that have battered a broad swathe of southern China for 10 days continued. The ... read more


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