AT least 30 people have been killed in two days of intense storms in southeastern Brazil, said the Minas Gerais state Civil Defence Office yesterday.

Seventeen people are missing, seven injured and some 3,500 forced out of their homes following a series of landslides and building collapses, said officials.

Television footage showed images of overflowing rivers, flooded neighbourhoods, and trees and utility poles knocked over by the rushing water.

Several highways have been cut by the flooding, and scores of bridges knocked out.

Most of the victims were killed in landslides or buried in destroyed homes. At least two children are listed among the dead.

Heavy rains are also hitting the nearby states of Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo.

Rainfall in the region has been the heaviest since records were first kept 110 years ago, said the National Institute of Meteorology.

In one 24-hour period, Minas Gerais capital Belo Horizonte recorded 172mm of rain.

Forecasters said the storms are expected to taper off today, but authorities warned that the danger of landslides remains high, especially in the Belo Horizonte area.

The deluge coincides with the first anniversary of the dam collapse in the Minas Gerais town of Brumadinho that killed 270 people. Eleven people are still listed as missing.

An accumulation of water and a lack of drainage caused the tailings dam rupture on January 25 last year, according to a report commissioned by mining firm Vale. – AFP, January 26, 2020.