ITAJAI, Brazil -- Flood victims waded through waist-deep water into mud-filled houses yesterday in a devastated part of southern Brazil where neighbors set up patrols to keep looters away and lined up by the thousands for government food aid.
As waters from torrential rains receded after causing at least 99 deaths, returning residents hauled soaked furniture and damaged electronic goods into the streets of this coastal city at the mouth of the swollen Itajai-Acu River.
Hunger and thirst were so widespread in the city of 170,000 that police were ordered to let residents take food and water from stores because they were being "driven by despair to steal," said state public safety spokesman Joao Carlos Santos.
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