'It feels like being in hell': Rio roasts in spring heatwave

A ferocious heatwave was sweeping South America, and samba composer Beto Gago (Stuttering Bob) saw only one thing to do: pop out for an ice-cold beer with his drinking buddy Joel Saideira - Last Order Joel.

- Tom Phillips and Constance Malleret

"Damn, it was grim around here," the 76-year-old musician grimaced as he stood outside his home in Irajá reputedly Rio's hottest postcode - last week with a bohemian's potbelly spilling out over his lilac shorts.

"It was bloody miserable. Even Lucifer was using a fan! He couldn't bear the heat either!" chuckled Gago's son, a 36-year-old sambista called Juninho Thybau.

Irajá -a No 3-shaped chunk of north Rio famed for its samba stars - is far from the only corner of Brazil that has been baking under unseasonal temperatures. Having just emerged from its warmest winter since 1961, South America's largest country has experienced a mercilessly hot start to spring.

With temperatures soaring towards - and in some places over-40C, newspapers and weather forecasters have drawn comparisons with hotspots including Iran, Saudi Arabia and even Dallol, Ethiopia, which is reputedly the world's hottest inhabited place.

In the town of São Romão, in Minas Gerais state, temperatures hit 43Clast week - "only two degrees less than in the Sahara desert", reported one local newspaper. A week earlier, Irajá's residents endured 41C temperatures - "higher than Death Valley in California", according to the television news.