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Brazil mudslide kills 220

10 April 2010 08:34 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Brazil mudslide death toll reaches 219 people. Rescuers in Brazil on Friday resumed a grim search through a wall of mud with hopes fading of finding survivors as almost 400 people were feared dead after some of the worst rains in decades. APA reports quoting AFP. Rescue teams have pulled out 22 bodies since part of a hillside collapsed on Wednesday, sliding onto a shantytown built on a landfill across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, burying an estimated 200 people. Apart from those believed buried, officials said at least 195 people have been killed across Rio de Janeiro state since Monday when some of the heaviest rains in half a century unleashed floods and mudslides. Some 50 000 people have been forced to flee their homes due to the disaster, officials said. The floods tore through the metropolitan areaâ€™s precarious hillside slums, with Niteroi hardest hit with at least 115 dead, according to the civil defense authorities.