Brazil disaster zone:

Lucky rescue

Tears mingled with rain in the Serrana, the mountainous zone just north of Rio de Janeiro that has become the scene of one of Brazil’s worst-ever natural catastrophes.

But the accounts of loss were leavened by one high-drama rescue. “I thought I was going to die,” said Ilair Pereira de Souza, a 53-year-old woman who had a miraculous escape when neighbours on a nearby balcony threw her a rope. “Help me, help me,” she pleaded, in scenes replayed throughout the day on Brazilian television.

She grabbed for the rope, and disappeared underneath the muddy waters, before reappearing, clinging to the slim lifeline, but without her dog Beethoven, which she had been clutching in her arms

“If I had tried to save him, I would have died. The poor thing. He stayed for a moment looking me in the eyes, and then he was swept away.”