TERESOPOLIS: Tears mingled with rain in the Serrana, the mountainous zone just north of Rio de Janeiro that has become the scene of one of Brazil's worst-ever natural catastrophes.

Days after floodwaters and surging waves of mud killed more than 440 people, grief was palpable in this lush area now scarred red and brown where waterlogged soil had pushed downhill, knocking away anything in its path.

But the accounts of loss were leavened by one high-drama rescue.

“I thought I was going to die,” said Ilair Pereira de Souza, a 53-year-old woman who had a miraculous escape when neighbors on a nearby balcony threw her a rope.

“Help me, help me,” she pleaded, in scenes replayed throughout the day on Brazilian television.

She grabbed for the rope, and disappeared underneath the muddy waters, before reappearing, clinging to the slim lifeline, but without her dog Beethoven, which she had been clutching in her arms

“If I had tried to save him, I would have died. The poor thing. He stayed for a moment looking me in the eyes, and then he was swept away.” In Teresopolis, one mountain town devastated by the mudslides, the atmosphere was mournful as the extent of the disaster became apparent.

In a former church and a police station, bodies piled up in makeshift morgues while outside crowds of people desperate to learn the fate of loved ones gathered.

They looked at photos of faces disfigured by the surprise of death or the ravages of decomposition. Many of the bodies were those of children, women and old people – all physically less apt to survive nature's onslaught.

“I can't go inside. I don't have courage to,” said one woman, Ana Maria, 40, who was looking for relatives.

Nearby, a long line had formed of families waiting to collect bodies of kin, while around them workers wearing masks to shield from the stench staffed the reception and accompanied those identifying the cadavers.

“You have no idea how hard it is to see the bodies of so many children ... It's horrible,” one fireman told AFP.

Suddenly, there was a gasp from three women nearby who had been looking through the wall of photos. They held each other close as they recognized the lifeless face of a relative.

Elsewhere in the city, in a gymnasium, hundreds of people left homeless by the calamity sat around on mattresses, still in shock, some injured.

Volunteers carrying food, clothing and hygiene products were tending to them, amid a growing chaos of bags, baby carriages, toys and pathetic piles of possessions that represented all they had left.

A 60-year-old nursing assistant, Sonia Rodrigues, asked an AFP reporter for help to find her 29-year-old daughter Ana, a welfare worker who disappeared after going to a friend's place to sleep the night the mud came.

“I need to know how she is,” Rodrigues wailed.

Edmar Da Rosa, a 44-year-old laborer whose face was badly lacerated, looked lost and unable to comprehend the deaths of family members.

He said a retaining wall fell on part of his house that he shared with his wife, three children and a grandson.

“My wife died. My grandson ended up dying. And the others are hurt,” he said.

A few meters (feet) away, 59-year-old Joao de Lima clutched a doll with desolation written on his face. “I lost my four daughters and everything I had,” he said softly. – AFP