Venezuela's civil defence agency chief said yesterday that up to 50,000 people may have been killed in mudslides and flooding swept across nine provinces in the north of the country.The venezuelan red cross has mobilised more than 1,300 volunteers and staff to help in search and rescue efforts, evacuation operations, transporting the injured and providing food, blankets and clothes to survivors, the federation statement said."In caracas, the worst-hit areas were the shanty towns perched on steep mountainsides where one third of the city's six million residents live," it said, adding that the initial appeal would be revised as soon as more precise information about the extent of need was known.
