RIO DE JANEIRO,  (Reuters) – Torrents of flood water  devastated towns and villages in northeastern Brazil, killing  at least 42 people and leaving more than 600 missing, emergency  officials said yesterday.

Days of heavy rain in the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco  flooded towns, burst a river dam, and left more than 40,000  people without shelter, state officials said.

At least 29 people were killed in Alagoas and 607 were  missing. About 500 of those missing were in the area of Uniao  de Palmeiras, which was hit by a wall of water after a dam gave  in under the weight of the floods.

“Unfortunately, some towns have been nearly 100 percent  destroyed, basically wiped off the map,” Sandro Cavalcante, a  spokesman for the Alagoas state Civil Defense agency, told  Reuters.

In Pernambuco, to the north of Alagoas, 13 people were  killed and nearly 18,000 people were made homeless, the  national Civil Defense agency said. Alagoas had nearly 26,000  people without shelter.

Images from Globo Television showed whole towns flattened  by the raging waters. Overturned cars lay among debris of  hundreds of shattered houses and railway tracks were torn apart  by the force of the water.