Volunteer logistics whizzes race to aid Brazil storm victims

Clothing donations have flooded into Brazil's disaster zone, but underwear is in short supply. Enter the volunteer logistics masterminds racing to find out what those left homeless by this week's deadly storms actually need -- and get it to them.

Tuesday's torrential rains and the deadly floods and landslides they triggered have turned the scenic mountain city of Petropolis into what numerous officials, including President Jair Bolsonaro, describe as a "war zone."

Teams of rescue workers are knee-deep in mud and rubble searching for landslide victims, anguished families sobbing for their lost loved ones are an all-too-common sight, and the mangled remains of cars washed away in flash floods are strewn around the city.

Residents like lawyer Daniel Vasconcellos have responded by setting up overnight charities resembling wartime supply operations.

When Vasconcellos and his law partner, Bernardo da Silva Oliveira, saw that authorities and established charities were not getting their neighbours the help they needed, they turned their offices into the headquarters of a massive aid effort.

Outside their offices in the hard-hit neighbourhood of Chacara Flora, a long human chain passes packages of bottled water from hand to hand at rapid speed.

Inside, the floor is stacked high with clothing, food, hygiene products, diapers and myriad other necessities for people who lost everything.

"When the landslides hit, we and a lot of others rushed to help people trapped in the mud and rubble," says Vasconcellos, 28.

But once rescue workers and the army arrived at the scene, "we saw people needed another kind of help," he said.

Donations started pouring in from all around Brazil as news of the tragedy spread. But he and Oliveira saw a gap between what people were getting and what they needed.

"The official donation centres are full, but sometimes they're not getting to the people up there in hillside neighbourhoods who are waiting for a family member's body to be found," says Vasconcellos.