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Mudslides Kill Hundreds In Brazil

By Mark Memmott
Published January 13, 2011 at 5:05 AM MST
Cars sit in debris in a flooded street in Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on Wednesday (Jan. 12, 2011).
Roberto Ferreira
/
AP
Cars sit in debris in a flooded street in Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on Wednesday (Jan. 12, 2011).

"The number of people killed by flooding and mudslides in south-east Brazil has reached 348," the BBC reports, citing local officials as its sources.

Reuters is putting the death toll at 361.

The Associated Press writes that "driving rains sent tons of rusty red earth sliding into Brazilian mountain towns. ... In the hardest-hit town of Teresopolis, where the local civil defense agency said at least 146 people died, hundreds of family members crowded around the town's morgue waiting to identify bodies. More corpses were laid out on a street in front to the police station, covered by blankets."

The Guardianwarns that "one Brazilian TV network ... suggested that as many as 1,000 people could still be missing."

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Mark Memmott
Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
See stories by Mark Memmott