NASA said on January 13, 2011 that a particularly strong La Nina weather pattern of cooler water temperatures is fueling heavy rains and floods in Australia, Sri Lanka and Brazil. “This La Niña has strengthened for the past seven months, and is one of the most intense events of the past half century,” said Climatologist Bill Patzert of NASA/JPL. Australia's third-largest city Brisbane was turned into a “war zone” with whole suburbs under water and infrastructure smashed as the worst flood in decades hit 30,000 properties. Officials said, the number of people killed in Sri Lanka’s monsoon flooding and mudslides have risen to 27 with more than a million people still displaced by the devastating disaster. In Brazil, authorities have stated that more than a thousand people have been left without homes and 71 lost their lives in Teresopolis alone.