I am in Brazil – the state where we live is in a state of emergency in some parts, but not our city. It is terrible watching the news as there are still many many people searching for their relatives, so from what I can see the death toll could be much higher.
Sao Paulo is also in a state of chaos in the poor areas. There has been severe flooding there too, but in a city of 20 million, there is so much concrete that the rain has nowhere to go, and many parts of the city are just one big sewer.
The Brazilian people are all helping out. Many people have no food, water, electricity or electricity, and many places are still cut off. The Brazilian army are helping out, but it is still pretty dire. I know there are terrible things happening in Australia, but it is really heart breaking over in Brazil – and the news is showing nothing else.
I am not too sure how much outside help is needed – it is more a case of getting water and food to the isolated areas that are cut off.
The other thing about Brazil is that many politicians are still in power from the military dictatorship period, and the rich don’t care about the poor. There is still an insane amount of corruption here so you could not be confident that any donations would actually go to the people who need help. But many regular Brazilians are helping out with clothes donations etc.