Heavy flooding in Brazil, 3,000 evacuated
Posted: 15 February 2009 0611 hrs

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RIO DE JANEIRO - More than 3,000 people have been evacuated in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state as of Saturday following days of torrential rains, flooding and mudslides that prompted officials to declare a disaster area.

One of the municipalities most severely affected was Itaborai, some 30 kilometres northeast of the city of Rio where 1,000 residents were evacuated from their homes and more than 280 buildings were damaged or destroyed, according to civil defense forces.

Further to the northeast, the locality of Cardoso Moreira was declared a disaster area, while other cities were under similar conditions as meteorologists were forecasting renewed heavy rains for Sunday.

Concern focused on the state's largest river, Paraiba do Sul, which news website G1 said had risen more than five metres since the rains began Thursday and inundated several adjacent communities.

In neighboring Sao Paulo state the town of Tambau was on high alert over the risk of collapse of a dam that supplies water to the city. Waters that topped the dam's floodgates have already washed out a nearby bridge.

Its summer is the season with the heaviest rains in tropical Brazil.

- AFP /ls