April 6, 2010

Floods In Rio de Janeiro

It has been raining very hard in southern Brazil since Saturday, and it appears that it is not going to let up any time soon. Here in Santos it has been very windy and we have had alot of rain. There are over 40 families who have been affected thus far by flooding or landslides in their homes, mostly up in the hills over the city.

Rio de Janeiro has received the worst of the heavy rains, and thus far 94 people have lost their lives in the last couple of days. In the last 24 hours Rio has had over 11 inches of rain, and there are many areas underwater. Because Rio has many hills and mountains around the city with "favelas" (slums) where houses are built practically on top of one another, there are serious problems with mud slides when it rains hard. The news is saying that this is one of the worst, if not the worst flooding the city has ever had.





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