Floods Ease in Brazil; 300,000 Left Homeless

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 10, 2009

PEDREIRAS, Brazil (AP) — Floodwaters receded somewhat in inundated towns across northern Brazil on Sunday, but the number of people made homeless by the floods rose above 300,000, and two people were missing after an overloaded canoe overturned in swift waters.

Forty deaths have been confirmed in northern Brazil’s worst flooding in decades, fed by two months of unusually heavy rains in a zone stretching from deep in the Amazon to normally arid areas near the Atlantic coast.

In Maranhão State, one of the worst-affected regions, a small canoe capsized with seven people aboard on a river between the towns of Pedreiras and Trizidela do Vale. The two missing passengers were a 54-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman.

“She knew how to swim, but it looks like the current was too strong,” said Francisco Aguiar, an uncle of the missing woman.

Police officers and firefighters in motorboats were searching for the pair, said Wallace Pires, an official with Brazil’s national security force.

Elsewhere, emergency crews struggled to clear debris from highways blocked by landslides, seeking to open the way for desperately needed aid shipments. There have been widespread complaints that the government was too slow in delivering food and water.

“It’s raining less and we were able to clear some of the highways that were blocked,” said Ivar Araujo, the civil defense spokesman for Maranhão. “It will be easier to bring help to the victims, but the situation is still a little complicated.”

There were reports of scattered looting in Maranhão and of residents refusing to leave flooded homes for fear of thieves.

But the gradual retreat of high water in many places lifted spirits.

“We’re hoping the situation improves because the rains have not been so intense,” said Maria Dorothea de Araujo, the Amazon operations manager for the aid group World Vision.

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