NITEROI, Brazil (AFP) -- Some 200 people were feared dead after being buried in mudslides near Rio de Janeiro, officials said yesterday, bringing new tragedy to Brazil following massive floods which have already killed more than 150.

"From what the neighbours said, some 200 people may be buried, but it is not clear, there could be more," local fire chief Pedro Machado told AFP yesterday as crews battled to dig through mudslides in Niteroi, a city across the bay from the city of Rio.

Twenty-five people, including eight small children, were pulled out alive yesterday after spending hours buried under mud and debris.

The rescues fuelled new hope for anxious relatives desperate to find their loved ones, as 150 rescue workers -- soldiers, firefighters and civil defence workers armed with spades and pickaxes -- searched for more survivors.

Six bodies had been recovered following the mudslide late Wednesday in a Niteroi slum.

But firefighters said there was little chance of finding survivors after part of the hillside fell away and slid some 700 metres swallowing everything in its path, including 50 houses, a day-care centre and a pizzeria.

The death toll yesterday rose to 157 in floods and mudslides around Rio since it was hit Monday by the worst rains in half a century.

Most of the casualties were trapped in landslides in the slums around Rio, a metropolis of some 16 million people that will host the World Cup football tournament in 2014 and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

The toll was likely to rise as dozens of people were reportedly still missing after the rains, which displaced more than 1,400 people and destroyed scores of homes.

Sabrina Carvalho de Jesus, 26, a hospital worker, escaped with her life when the earth began to move, but her grandfather, mother and six-year-old son were buried.

"Honestly, I don't hold out hope any more" for her missing loved ones, she said. They were under "an awful lot of earth, and been buried for 12 hours -- that's a lot of time", she added.

The head of the Niteroi public services, Jose Mocarzel, said the Morro do Bumba shantytown had been built up over the past 25 years on an old landfill site and was particularly at risk.

A strong odour of methane lingered among the trash-strewn streets.

Flooding over the past days has been so intense that authorities urged residents to remain indoors. Rainfall lessened by Wednesday, but was predicted to continue all week.

Emergency officials said most fatalities were in slums around Rio de Janeiro and announced plans to try to evacuate tens of thousands of inhabitants fearing further loss of life.

Various officials and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticised decades of negligence which allowed shoddy home construction in high-risk zones.

But the authorities were blasted in the press for failing to anticipate the disaster.

"Where is the emergency plan?" said the daily O Globo.