Brazil still counting its dead as floods pound Philippines

ITAIPAVA, Brazil: A week after the deadliest mudslides Brazil has ever seen, the country is still counting the dead and struggling to bring assistance to survivors.

The death toll was climbing toward 700 as emergency crews were finally able to get past blocked roads and recover bodies from remote villages in the Serrana region near Rio de Janeiro. As of early Tuesday, a total of 676 dead had been tallied, according to the government news agency Agencia Brasil.

In Australia, Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the formation of a business task force to assist with rebuilding in what is expected to be the nations costliest ever natural disaster a deluge that has lashed five of its seven states, killing more than 30 people.

Floodwaters surging through southeastern Victoria state claimed their first life, with police divers retrieving the body of an 8-year-old boy who fell into a swollen waterhole Monday.

[The family] are absolutely shattered, they held a vigil here last night and they always had some sort of hope, they were hoping for the best. Unfortunately it hasnt occurred, said acting senior sergeant Jason Kelly.

The deluge threatened hundreds of homes in towns along the Wimmera River, including Horsham, home to 14,200 people, which was split in two by the flood peak, leaving thousands without power.

At least 31 people died in the Queensland deluge which spread across an area the size of France and Germany combined and devastated Brisbane, Australias third-largest city, as it peaked last week.

Severe weather threatened the region south of Brisbane Tuesday, with the weather bureau warning that damaging winds, very heavy rainfall, flash flooding and large hailstones are likely.

The long-running flood crisis prompted A.N.Z. Banking Group to warn the rebuilding effort in coal mining and farming Queensland state could be in the order of $20 billion.

Elsewhere, the Philippine coast guard imposed a fishing ban Tuesday covering central and southern! parts o f the country as the death toll from three weeks of rains rose to 54 and the damage bill topped 1.7 billion pesos ($38 million).

Authorities are preventing small fishing boats from going out to sea as searches were stepped up to look for more than 30 fishermen missing in western Palawan and central Bicol regions.

Were advising small fishing boats to suspend operations due [to] strong winds and giant waves brought by the tail-end of the cold front, vice admiral Wilfredo Tamayo of the Coast Guard said.

There have been more than half a dozen accidents over the past week due to rough seas, Tamayo told reporters, adding there were fears the missing fishermen were dead.

Floodwaters have inundated about a third of the countrys 80 provinces, but major rice and corn production areas in the north and western parts of the country have so far been spared.

Benito Ramos, head of the governments disaster agency, said the rains, which the weather bureau have said could last until late next month, have so far affected about 1.6 million people and that more than 2,000 houses have been destroyed. With agencies