(AFP) – Jun 22, 2009

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) — Manaus, a city deep in Brazil's Amazon jungle, is suffering the worst flooding it has seen in 56 years, civil defense officials said Monday.

Torrential rain in Brazil's north has swollen the Amazon river and its tributaries, including the Negro river on which Manaus sits, they said.

Over the weekend, the Negro river rose to 29.62 meters (88.32 feet) -- just a centimeter off the level it reached in 1953, when it hit 29.63 meters.

At least 18,000 people have been affected by the deluge, which has swamped part of Manaus and washed sewage and trash into houses.

Many residents are refusing to leave their homes.

"We have to evacuate around 70 people, but they don't want to leave," one civil defense official, Antonio Batista, told the Globo News television channel.

Around 60 people died in April and May when torrential rains lashed the normally dry north and northeast of Brazil.

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