Rio Rainstorm Kills 100

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30957, 13 January 1966, Page 11

Rio Rainstorm Kills 100

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —Copyright) RIO DE JANEIRO, January 11. Landslides thundered through hillside shanty towns today as the worst recorded rainstorm in Rio de Janeiro’s history killed more than 100 persons.

Many more people wen missing and the rain kep pelting down remorselessly. Authorities yesterday de dared the area in a state o: calamity. Many city street; were turned into raging tor rents. Houses collapsed, can were abandoned and in place; the waters were 7ft deep. Most of the deaths wen caused as walls of watei swept shanty towns off sur rounding hills. Huge boulders were sent crashing down on homes clustered around the foot of the hills. Rock Slips A huge rock slipped off the Copacabanca and shattered five houses 300 yards below. Firemen removed 27 bodies from the ruins in which 50 persons had lived, the “New York Times” news service reported. In Santa Teresa, within

; l sight of Rio’s commercial Jcentre. an avalanche of mud and rock buried at least five shanties. Eight bodies were i removed and neighbours said there were at least 16 ’ other persons missing, includ- [ ing a family with six child- ! ren. ’ It was a day of shock and sodden misery in the marg- ; inal hillside and mud flat shantytowns where an estimated 600,000 of this city’s 3,500,000 people live." Thousands had to be evacuated. Nine inches of water fell: in less than 12 hours. State; engineers estimated the dam-: ages, particularly through in- ! : undated stores, at nearlv I £500,000. i State police said bodies | I were continuously being. | brought into the city morgue) I and hospitals, raising fears' that the death toll could ex-1 iceed 150.