Nearly 400 dead in Brazil flood disaster

BRAZIL is grappling with its worst natural disaster in more than four decades, a calamitous collapse of rain-soaked hillsides near Rio that has killed nearly 400 people.

The disaster zone is a mountainous area just north of Rio de Janeiro known as the Serrana.

Freakish storms there on Wednesday dumped the equivalent of a months' rain in just a few hours, sending mudslides and fierce torrents slicing through towns and hamlets, destroying homes, roads and bridges and knocking out telephone and power lines.

At least 378 people died, according to local officials and media in the worst affected towns of Novo Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis.

The death toll was expected to rise further as rescuers arrived on Thursday in remote hamlets, many cut off to all but helicopter access.

"One woman tried to save her children but her two-month-old baby was carried away by a torrent like a doll," sobbed Angela, a 55-year-old resident of Teresopolis who saw the destruction.

BRAZIL is grappling with its worst natural disaster in more than four decades, a calamitous collapse of rain-soaked hillsides near Rio that has killed nearly 400 people.

The disaster zone is a mountainous area just north of Rio de Janeiro known as the Serrana.

Freakish storms there on Wednesday dumped the equivalent of a months' rain in just a few hours, sending mudslides and fierce torrents slicing through towns and hamlets, destroying homes, roads and bridges and knocking out telephone and power lines.

At least 378 people died, according to local officials and media in the worst affected towns of Novo Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis.

The death toll was expected to rise further as rescuers arrived on Thursday in remote hamlets, many cut off to all but helicopter access.

"One woman tried to save her children but her two-month-old baby was carried away by a torrent like a doll," sobbed Angela, a 55-year-old resident of Teresopolis who saw the destruction.