Strong floods have hit areas near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil this past week with reports of raging waters and mudslides in several states.  The Adventures of a Gringa blog published a great article on how people outside of Brazil can  donate online and some information on the better sites to donate to. The actual article has the proper url links to the correct sites.

But it's a bit more difficult if you're outside of Brazil....Even the local businesses only seem to offer a phone number to call for more information about making donations; only NGOs have pertinent information available online. 

For those of us in the US, you can donate to Red Cross International or CARE International. Still, I wish there was a more direct way. Any volunteers to set up a website to funnel online donations to Viva Rio and other local organizations? 

BBC News also published an article with a decent map of the affect areas.

"It's very overwhelming. The scenes are very shocking," President Rousseff said on her visit to the area on Thursday.

The day before, she signed a decree authorising 780m reais ($480m; £296m) in emergency funding for the affected areas.

Ms Rousseff described the destruction as an act of God but she also expressed anger at illegal construction.