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Brazil boosts flood aid for 308K left homeless
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-12 14:52
Sergipe would be the 11th state to be affected by the heavy rains, but attempts to confirm the report were unsuccessful because state civil defense officials did not answer telephones. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on his weekly radio program Monday that the government was preparing to rebuild after making sure food and medicine reaches hungry and sickened Brazilians. Silva, who was born poor in Brazil's impoverished northeast, said he sympathizes with victims and urged officials to quickly assess damages so he can enact an emergency order for federal funding. He said he had lived in neighborhoods hit by flooding. "I know what it's like to have a house filled with water." The unusually heavy rains have hit a huge region of Brazil stretching from the normally wet Amazon to northeastern states known for extended droughts. Meteorologists blame an Atlantic Ocean weather system that usually moves on in March but hasn't budged this year. Silva said he worried that climate change could be causing severe weather swings for Latin America's largest nation. The flooding in the Amazon comes five years after parts of the area experienced a severe drought and environmentalists have said they worry the rain forest and its wild life could be threatened by weather swings. Meanwhile, a drought in southern Brazil has hurt agriculture and reduced the amount of water flowing over the famed Iguazu waterfalls at the border of Brazil and Argentina. The floods and droughts drive home the fact "that some things are changing in the world and we need to start looking at them with more attention," Silva said. A major iron ore export railway that takes the raw ingredient for steel to an Atlantic Ocean port was reopened Monday after more than 500 workers spent days constructing two dikes and using pumps to divert water off the tracks, Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA said in a statement. The railway from the Carajas mine in the jungle state of Para had been closed since May 4, said Vale, the world's largest producer of iron ore. The company did not say how many tons of ore were delayed for shipment abroad by the closure. |
