Rio

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on April 25th, 2011
The Metro-Mangueira favela as it is now, is used as a hiding place by residents [Elizondo/Al Jazeera]

Rita Bonfim Silva is trying her best to keep up her normal routine: going out of her way to offer guests coffee, bread and butter.

But her life is likely to dramatically change very soon. The one room she rents in a crumbing three-level brick house in Metro-Mangueira favela in Rio de Janeiro is set to be demolished by the city as part of a re-development project under way in blighted areas of the city in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics.

But for Ms Silva, it’s not easy for her to pick up and move.

By Gabriel Elizondo in Americas on April 12th, 2010
Photo by Reuters
It's been a less than a week since Rio de Janeiro was thrust into absolute chaos with relentless downpours that flooded the city, killed 229 people (as of Sunday night), injured nearly 200, caused over 11,000 people to evacuate their homes, and left an unknown number buried under the earth in mudslides.
 
Sergio Cabral, the governor of the state of Rio, said it will take weeks to get the city back to normal. Heavy machinery backhoes continue to work around-the-clock to clear mud from the hardest-hit areas.
 

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