[Kristie Lu Stout, Anchor:] Welcome to NEWS STREAM, where news and technology meet. I'm Kristie Lu Stout, in Hong Kong. Powerful floodwaters trigger mudslides in Brazil, killing hundreds.
[Sepp Blatter, Fifa President:] If you ask me, the percentage to play in winter is definitely over 50 percent.
[Stout:] FIFA's president says he expects the 2022 World Cup to be moved to winter, but he's facing dissent from the host nation itself. And man takes on machine. Can a computer beat humans on a popular TV game show? First rain, and now mud. Landslides have buried several towns in Brazil. Local media say more than 500 people have died in Rio de Janeiro state. And authorities warn thousands of families are at risk of being washed away. Southeastern Brazil has been battered by heavy rain for weeks. And take a look at how powerful the flooding is in some areas. Rescuers are having trouble reaching remote villages because the roaring water has wiped out roads and bridges. And right now, CNN's Helene De Moura is traveling to one of the worst-hit towns. She's about one hour away. She joins us now live on the line. Helena, tell us, what have you been seeing out there?
[Helena De Moura, Cnn International Correspondent:] Well, I am not exactly at the location
[Stout:] One can only imagine the emotional upheaval of all this. Talk to us about the aid effort. How is aid getting to the people who need it?
[De Moura:] Well, the roads have been impassable for the past 24 hours. I think some of the rescue workers have been able to carry some additional aid, water and food, to Nova Friburgo and Terresopolis and some of these affected areas. But still, the job is very, very difficult, because, again, overnight, they had to stop the rescue efforts due to the treacherous conditions on the road. And I'm hearing right now from the police that there have been several robberies and attacks on the road. As you know, the violence in Rio is people you know, armed bandits are basically taking advantage of this situation of chaos to rob people. So the situation, again, it's very, very chaotic. It's hard to get information on the ground as people are pacing around trying to find water, trying to find their loved ones, trying to find a way to make a phone call, even. So that's the situation that I'm experiencing for now.
[Stout:] So we have chaos, violence. A major disaster here. How angry are people? Are people there blaming state and federal government for a lack of disaster planning, for allowing shoddy construction that has resulted in so many landslides?
[De Moura:] Yes. It's too early to start the political blame game. Yes, I have heard some people angry with the Lula government, saying that he did not live up to his promises to bring sort of a to bring democracy to urban development, meaning to start reaching out to these different franchise communities that have had basically been forgotten by the state, where communities are basically building on top of each other on top of riverbanks, on top of makeshift constructions that are extremely dangerous. But, right now, again, as described by someone who I just saw interviewed on TV, this has been a tsunami falling from the sky, a tsunami that fell from the sky. And people are still in a state of shock, and it's just too much to start on that area, but I'm sure that soon, the blame game will begin Kristie.
[Stout:] A tsunami fallen from the sky. Helena, thank you so much for being there and covering this story for us. Helena De Moura, live from Rio de Janeiro. Now, it is the rainy summer season in Brazil right now. Flooding, it happens every year. But it is the landslides like what you see here that kill so many people. Let's give you a better understanding of where this is happening. Rio de Janeiro lies here, on the southeast coast. Now, take a look at the three towns where those deadly landslides struck. They all sit in the mountains. The rain can make the ground unstable. And some of the houses on those slopes are there illegally. Those rickety structures are no match for the wall of mud and rock that washed down toward them. And more rain is on the way. As floodwaters recede, meanwhile, in Australia, emergency efforts are focused on finding the 53 people still missing after the deluge. Sixteen people have now been confirmed dead in the past week. With the cleanup under way, Phil Black surveys the damage.
[Phil Black, Cnn International Correspondent:] As the Brisbane River recedes, this is what it's leaving behind, this thick, gray sludge. And you can see it. It's inches deep in places, and it's not just on the streets. Along this street, it is through people's homes. Not just on the ground floor, but the first floor as well. It's a massive cleanup effort. And you can see the people have already moved in, and they're really making some progress, dragging out the possessions that have been destroyed and can't be saved, leaving them by the side of the road. We're seeing trucks and bulldozers move through here, picking them up, carting it away. It's really quite frantic activity all along this street, and this is just one of many across Brisbane that are like this. Many of the people that you see working in this neighborhood, they're not locals. They're people that have driven from across Brisbane to lend a hand. Lots of people we've spoken to say that volunteers have just showed up on their doorstep with shovels, brooms, gloves and gum boots, wanting to do what they can to help. And that's actually such a strong phenomenon, that there's a lot of traffic across the city. And many of them are volunteers trying to get to places where they can really help out. So this frantic cleanup effort is just one reaction to the floods of this region. Another one is a search and rescue operation that's taking place west of Brisbane, in the Lockyer Valley, that suffered such severe flash flooding just before the floodwaters hit the main city here. There, they are still looking for around 50 missing people. And the police who are running that operation now believe it's possible some of them may never be found. Phil Black, CNN, Brisbane, Australia.
[Stout:] Well, it's been well documented that this week's floods in Brisbane stopped well short of the levels seen in the record floods of 1974. What that fact does not spell out is the change Brisbane has undergone in the meantime. Now, let's show you the extent of the flooding now and compare it to what the city experienced 37 years ago. Now, the affected areas are practically identical, including the central business district located right here, above a bend in the river. Now, the most obvious difference is here, to the west of the city, where the flooding has actually been worse this time around. But Brisbane is a very different place now. What was a city of 900,000 people back in 1974 is today a city of two million. The population has more than doubled, and the number of buildings flooded has more than quadrupled. Now, still ahead on NEWS STREAM, fighting for an education. We hear from the Pakistani children whose schools have been destroyed by the Taliban. Defending a controversial decision, FIFA president Sepp Blatter talks tactics and timing as the Qatar World Cup debate rumbles on. And this superhuman super computer. Artificial intelligence takes on the quiz show specialists and wins. We've got all the details in the battle of human versus machine.