Raging floods are pummeling Brazil.
- By : James Bryson
- Category : Environmental, Weather, World Events
The historic floods in Rio Grande do Sul, caused by heavy rainfall since the last days of April, have affected more than two million people, leaving 143 dead, 806 injured and 131 missing.
The torrential rains hitting southern Brazil increased river flows and created scenes of “chaos” in the suburbs of Porto Alegre, in a region already devastated by floods that left more than 140 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes. houses.
“Practically all the large rivers in the state show a rising trend,” reported the Civil Defense of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which is going through the worst climate catastrophe in its history.
The Guaíba, a tributary that has covered large parts of the state capital Porto Alegre since last week, had dropped on Saturday to its lowest level since May 3.
But with the heavy rains that have fallen on the region since Friday, it rose again and should exceed five meters, “as the flow of the tributary rivers and the action of the winds flow,” according to the report.
The historic floods in Rio Grande do Sul, caused by heavy rainfall since the last days of April, have affected more than two million people, leaving 143 dead, 806 injured and 131 missing.
According to the latest Civil Defense report, more than 619,000 people had to leave their homes due to the catastrophe, which experts from the UN and the Brazilian government link to climate change and the El Niño phenomenon.
Other rivers were still overflowing and rising.
The Taquari floods once again put the small town of Muçum on alert, which was still recovering from the passage of a devastating cyclone in September when it was hit by floods.
According to the authorities, Laguna de los Patos, with access to the Atlantic, is at “very high levels” with a tendency to rise even higher in coastal areas.
The riverside city of Pelotas “faces a worsening of the situation”
In the center, in the Metropolitan Region and the “Gaúcha” mountain range, “significant volumes of precipitation” fell in the last 24 hours, with up to 120 mm in the valleys.
In the historic center of Porto Alegre, still flooded, people walked over barriers made of bags with rocks and sand; sofas and other belongings floated. Some areas of the suburb of Sao Leopoldo were cemeteries of cars submerged in the muddy waters.
“I went to check, my house broke down. In my brother-in-law’s house, next door, the water reached half of the second floor,” Claudio da Silva told AFP, as he navigated his boat through the flooded streets in Sao Leopoldo.
“Now it went down a little and you can enter the second floor, but it is chaos. Many dead animals. “It is very, very sad,” explained the 36-year-old electrician.
Metallurgist Antonio Vanzan, 50, described a “critical situation.”
“The water stopped going down (…). If the rain doesn’t stop falling, what is going to happen? The level of the river may increase and the water will return inside the neighborhoods,” she warned.
According to the National Institute of Meteorology, the entire state expects “heavy rain” to continue in the coming hours, with more than 100 mm per day in some parts.
In the northeast there is “great risk of major flooding and river overflows, and major landslides,” he added.
The probability of new floods is “very high” in almost all of Rio Grande do Sul, indicated, for its part, the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts of Natural Disasters (Cemaden).
In a video published on the social network
“You are not alone,” said the president, whose government announced that it will unlock some 10 billion dollars for the reconstruction of this agricultural and livestock state.
In Sao Leopoldo, meanwhile, fatigue sets in due to the persistence of the emergency.
“As things stand, this will continue until next Friday, then one more week of the waters going down, cleaning, one more week away from home (…). We are going to spend 30 days away from home,” said Claudio da Silva, the electrician.
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