ANKLE-DEEP in muck, Brazilian domestic worker Patricia da Silva picks her way through the debris and mud of what used to be her home, trying to rescue what she can of her belongings.
Da Silva, 31, had to flee with her two daughters Sunday at dawn when torrential rain in the southeastern beach resort of Sao Sebastiao, her hometown, triggered violent landslides—one of which tore through her house in a crush of earth and floodwater.