Flooding death toll in south Brazil rises to 75 as over 100 people remain missing

Seventy-five people are now known to have died in the flooding in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state, while more than 100 people remain missing, local authorities said on Sunday. The state’s civil defence authority said 101 people were unaccounted for and more than 80,000 had been displaced after record-breaking floods swept across the state, which borders Uruguay and Argentina.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, arrived in Rio Grande do Sul on Sunday, along with most members of his cabinet, to discuss rescue and reconstruction works with local authorities.

Rescue workers are continuing to race against the clock to save people from raging floods and mudslides. Using four-wheel-drive vehicles and at times jetskis, rescuers made their way through waist-deep water, searching for those who had been left stranded by the rising waters.

Video posted online by Lula appeared to show a helicopter dropping a soldier on the roof of a house, and the soldier using a brick to pound a hole in the roof and rescue a baby wrapped in a blanket.

Storms have affected almost two-thirds of the state’s 497 cities, leading to landslides, destroyed roads and collapsed bridges as well as power outages and water cuts. More than a million people lacked access to drinking water, according to Brazil’s civil defence agency.