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Brazil flood victims loot stores, death toll at 97
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-27 14:19 New reports emerged of looting and price gouging as food and supplies ran short in isolated towns. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said in a statement that two of its nine stores in Santa Catarina state were closed because of the floods, and that one of them was ransacked on Tuesday.
Thousands of civil defense workers, troops and police were trying to deliver aid, and about 3 tons of medicine, food, water and other supplies already were distributed. The worst-hit city was the town of Ilhota along the banks of the Itajai River, where 29 people died after waters rose 9 meters (30 feet) above normal. Soldiers there were trying to reach 200 people cut off since Saturday. Twenty people died in nearby Blumenau because of mudslides, and half of the population in the renowned tourist destination of nearly 300,000 had no electricity. Officials said it still could take days to reopen many of the region's slide-blocked highways. Silva authorized nearly $870 million in emergency relief because of the disaster, with nearly half of it destined to repair roads, fund military rescue operations, repair damaged ports and provide public health assistance. The government was was sending food, but shortages prompted some hungry people to loot stores of spoiled food after they could find nothing else, Itajai civil defense director Gilvan Muniz told the Web site of the O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper. "It's very sad to see people looting food so they don't die of hunger," he said. Natural gas, a key source of energy used to cook food, power cars and provide electricity to factories, remained cut off to Santa Catarina state because of a pipeline ruptured by a mudslide. Gas was also cut off to the neighboring state of Rio Grande do Sul that borders Argentina and Uruguay, and a key port for meat exports in Itajai was also shut down after it sustained major flood damage. |
