Torrents of flood water devastated towns and villages in northeastern Brazil, killing at least 38 people and leaving more than 600 missing, media reports said today.
Days of heavy rain in the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco flooded towns, burst a river dam, and left more than 50,000 people without shelter, state officials were quoted by media as saying.
Emergency officials in Alagoas and Pernambuco were reported as saying that 26 people had died in Alagoas, where there were also 607 people missing after the dam burst. In Pernambuco, 12 people were reported to have been killed.
"There are towns that look like an atomic bomb was dropped on them," the governor of Alagoas, Teotonio Vilela Filho, was quoted as saying by the O Globo newspaper.
"We are praying that they are alive," the governor said of the missing people. "We are worried because bodies have started to wash ashore."
Images from Globo Television showed whole towns flattened by the raging waters. Overturned cars lay among debris of hundreds of shattered houses and railway tracks were torn apart by the force of the water.
The official Agencia Brasil news agency said that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva would hold an emergency meeting today with federal and state official to determine the aid and rescue resources needed.