New Mudslide in Rio Area Buries Up to 200

Posted on Apr 8, 2010

AP / Felipe Dana

Firefighters search for people buried by a landslide in the Morro Bumba area of Niteroi.

As many as 200 people were buried in another landslide resulting from heavy rainfall, this time in a shantytown near Rio de Janiero, Brazil, late Wednesday. Rescue crews were digging for survivors Thursday, but the outlook was grim, according to The Associated Press.  —KA

AP via Google News:

If confirmed, the deaths would raise the toll sharply from the 153 people already known to have died this week in slides triggered by record rains.

“We know that about 60 houses were buried,” Rio state health secretary Sergio Cortes told The Associated Press. “It is hard to say exactly how many people were buried under the mud as well, but a worst-case scenario is 200.”

The slide that hit late Wednesday was a wall of black earth and garbage about 40 feet (12 meters) high that plowed through the Morro Bumba shantytown before coming to a halt along the edge of road in Niteroi, a city of about 500,000 across the bay from Rio.

On Thursday, crews with heavy machinery dug through the debris and about a dozen trucks lined up to haul it off. News broadcasts showed one house on top of the hill with only two walls standing, and a bed, a night stand and a television inside. Everything else went down with the slide.

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