Santa Catarina state, southern Brazil

Rescue workers desperately digging through the wreckage of homes engulfed by mudslides found more bodies in Santa Catarina state, southern Brazil, raising the death toll from rain-spawned floods and hillside collapses to an estimated 180.

State authorities estimate that 60 people or more were still missing in small cities and towns across Santa Catarina state, where torrential rains far surpassed records going back to 1961.

Most of the dead were killed in mudslides that swept away homes and businesses, and nearly 54,000 were displaced, civil defense officials said in a statement.

Eight cities remained isolated and were running short of everything from drinking water to fuel because of the rains that caused rivers to overflow their banks. Four helicopters were being used to rescue stranded people surrounded by water.

GAS PIPELINE RUPTURED

A stretch of the Bolivia-Brazil gas pipeline ruptured in Vale do Itajai river area paralyzing the work of the industrial complex that had been adapted to to be gas fueled. Petrobras had decided to build an alternative route for the gas line and abandon the stretch of the pipeline ruptured by mud slides. However, on December 1, Petrobras informed that it had to halt the project of an alternative route because heavy rains continued and the area became dangerous for workers. The forecast by Petrobras that the alternative route would be finished by December 13 is now up in the air.

The rupture of the gas line cut off 72% of the supply of natural gas from the state's sole source in Bolivia due to heavy rains, prompting shortages of cooking gas and fuel for cars. Gas was also cut off to the neigbhoring state of Rio Grande do Sul that borders Argentina and Uruguay.

There were three accidents in the gas pipeline network up to now, in Gaspar, Blumenau city and São Pedro de Alcântara. Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobão said that Petrobras will transport gas through trucks to Santa Catarina, to maintain the state supplied until the gas grid is repaired.

The Bolivia-Brazil gas pipeline is 3,150 km long connecting the city of Rio Grande in Bolivia to the city of Porto Alegre in southern Brazil. The pipeline flows through 5 Brazilian states and 135 municipalities (11 in Mato Grosso do Sul state, 70 in São Paulo, 13 in Paraná, 27 in Santa Catarina and 14 in Rio Grande do Sul). The pipeline cost $2,154 billion, of which $ 1,719 billion corresponds to the Brazilian portion of the pipeline.

Bolivia supplies Brazil with 27 to 29 million cu meters/day of natural gas. Last October Brazil consumed around 44 million cu m/day of gas, according to Abegás, the Brazilian association of piped gas.

Technicians of Santa Catarina's gas company forced out (purged) the remaining gas in the ruptured pipelines. The technicians injected nitrogen to force the natural gas out.According to the gas company the smell of the gas offers no risk to the population.

Six large textile mills also shut down because they had no natural gas to generate electricity, Brazil's local press agencies reported.

Seventeen highways are blocked by mudslides, and officials said it could take days to reopen several that were heaped high with earth and trees from entire hillsides that turned to mud, broke away and crashed in heaps atop the pavement.

"Almost all the deaths were caused by landslides that left people buried in their own homes," said Luiz Henrique da Silveira, Santa Catarina's governor.

Thirteen people died after being buried by landslides in the city of Blumenau, where officials declared a state of emergency late on November 30 and warned that more mudslides were possible.