President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has called a crisis Cabinet meeting for Tuesday and said the government would make federal funds available to help the homeless.

Days of heavy rain in the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco flooded towns, burst a river dam, and left more than 100,000 people without shelter, state officials were quoted by media as saying.

"Up until the early afternoon we had 26 confirmed dead in Alagoas (state) and more than 1,000 people missing," Alagoas Gov. Teotonio Vilela Filho said, quoted on the official Agencia Brasil news agency.

"We are praying for the missing to be found alive. But we are very worried because bodies are starting to turn up on beaches and on riverbanks," Vilela told reporters at a press briefing before meeting with Lula.

Civil defense officials in devastated Alagoas state said the Mundau River burst its banks in the town of Uniao dos Palmares, leaving at least 500 people unaccounted for there.

"Pernambuco state's rivers all run out through Alagoas. Swollen as they were they devastated cities," a distraught Vilela explained.

Thirteen people have been confirmed dead so far in Pernambuco, officials said.

The torrents swept away more than 40,000 houses, entire bridges and streets, as well as rail lines in 22 towns across Alagoas, Vilela said.

"There are towns that look like an atomic bomb was dropped on them," Vilela was quoted as saying by the O Globo newspaper.

"We are praying that they are alive," the governor said of the missing people. "We are worried because bodies have started to wash ashore."

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.