Families head home after Brazil floods, but 267,000 homeless

Tens of thousands of people in north-eastern Brazil have begun returning home, after devastating floods that left 267,000 homeless.Yesterday, the floods, in north eastern Brazil were starting to ease, but water kept on rising in the Amazonas state. Army helicopters, trucks and boats were used to ferry food and drinking water to victims in communities isolated by muddy lakes. Crowds of flood victims gathered around helicopters dropping off aid in the hard-hit state of Maranhao, and Globo TV showed images of people living on the roofs of homes inundated with water because they feared looters would strike if they headed to shelters. Officials say the death toll dropped from 42 to 39, because some deaths were not flood-related. Some 274,000 people have fled their homes, according to latest figures from Associated Press news agency. The number of homeless fell from 300,000 to 267,000 as residents headed home in some of the 11 states affected by the floods — an area three times the size of Alaska. But waters were still rising in some places and authorities warned that the situation remained a threat because the weather forecast calls for more downpours.

The fear now is that diseases could start to spread. The flooding has washed bodies out of the local cemetery and many animals have been killed, the BBC reported. Despite this, some local people have been drinking the water are refusing to leave their homes, partly because of the fear of looting. Concern is also growing over the possibility that the flooding could spread further inland to cities like Manaus, as the waters of Rio Negro, which feeds the Amazon, have been rising rapidly in recent days. The unusually heavy rains have hit many regions used to downpours but also the arid north east of Brazil.

Among the worst-hit areas is Maranhao, where 65,000 people have had to leave their homes. The town of Trizidela do Vale is said to be almost completely flooded. Meteorologists have blamed the rainfall that led to the floods on an Atlantic Ocean weather system that usually moves on in March but didn't budge this year.Water was still rising yesterday in sprawling Amazonas state, and low-lying parts of the jungle city of Manaus were flooding as the mighty Rio Negro river that feeds the Amazon approached a record set in 1953, said Jose Melo, in charge of the state's flood emergency efforts. Across the north and north-east, some one million people are said to have been affected by the floods. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the floods and drought in two southern states signalled climate change. "Brazil is feeling climate changes that are happening in the world, when there is severe drought in areas that don't have drought, when it rains too much in places where it doesn't rain," President Lula said in his weekly radio address earlier this week.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children