Brazil army rushes to aid flood victims, 30 dead

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Brazilian soldiers used boats, trucks and helicopters Wednesday to tote food and water to scores of cities and towns isolated by floods that have killed at least 30 people and left nearly 200,000 homeless. But in an ominous sign that worried civil defense officials, rain continued to fall across a vast region stretching from the Amazon jungle to the northeastern Atlantic coast and meteorologists predicted the bad weather could last for weeks. Isolated looting was reported in communities cut off by flooding, and some areas were experiencing their heaviest rainfall in more than two decades, officials said. In the hardest-hit state of Maranhao, some rivers were rising as much as 30 centimeters per day, destroying bridges and making it too dangerous for relief workers to navigate waterways.