incharity.org

Around 100 people have died in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro after the most torrential rain for decades caused landslides and flooding.

A state of emergency has been declared and officials have warned the death toll may rise as many more are missing.

At least 33 people died in Rio de Janeiro city after 28cm (11in) of rain fell in 24 hours, while 33 were killed in the neighbouring city of Niteroi.

Many houses Rio's hillside shanty towns were buried under mudslides.

Driving through Port-au-Prince's Parc Jean Marie Vincent camp, the first thing I notice is how massive and congested it is. After that, the smell and the heat hit me. I had come to the camp to interview a young rape survivor, as part of a Human Rights Watch mission to Haiti to investigate sexual and other violence against women in the aftermath of the earthquake. Sexual violence often increases in emergencies, when normal structures have broken down and women struggle to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter and hygiene.

In Parc Jean Marie Vincent, some 27,000 people had crammed themselves and their meager belongings into what was formerly a concrete sports park. Squalid shelters are built of sheets and other pieces of material slung over sticks and anything else that might hold them up. I wondered where women washed, changed sanitary pads and fed their babies, as these shelters so obviously provided no privacy. As we parked our car, my first question at