Residents evacuate from a neighborhood flooded by heavy rains in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Saturday, May 4, 2024.
Carlos Macedo/AP
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Residents evacuate from a neighborhood flooded by heavy rains in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Saturday, May 4, 2024.
Carlos Macedo/AP
RIO DE JANEIRO – Massive flooding in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state has killed at least 75 people over the past seven days and left 103 missing, local authorities said Sunday.
At least 155 people were injured and damage caused by the rain forced more than 88,000 people to leave their homes. About 16,000 people took shelter in schools, stadiums and other temporary shelters.
The flooding caused significant damage, including landslides, washed out roads and collapsed bridges across the state. Operators reported power and communications outages. More than 800,000 people were without water, the civil protection agency said, citing data from water company Corsan.
A rescue team pulled an elderly man in serious condition onto a helicopter from a remote area of the city of Bento Goncalves, according to footage from military firefighters. Brown water poured over a nearby dam.
Residents of the town of Canoas stood out in the muddy water on Saturday night, forming a human chain to pull boats carrying people to safety, according to video footage shared by the local UOL news network.
The Guaiba River reached a record level of 5.33 meters (17.5 feet) at 8 a.m. local time on Sunday, exceeding the level during the historic floods of 1941, when the river reached 4.76 meters.
“I repeat and I insist: We are experiencing unprecedented devastation,” Gov. Eduardo Wright said Sunday morning. He has previously said the state will need “a kind of Marshall Plan to rebuild.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made his second visit to Rio Grande do Sul on Sunday, accompanied by Defense Minister José Musio, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad and Environment Minister Marina ·Silva et al. The left-wing leader and his team surveyed the flooded streets of Porto Alegre from a helicopter.
“We need to stop being behind disasters. We need to see in advance what disasters may happen and we need to work,” Lula told reporters afterwards.
People evacuate on surfboards from a community flooded by heavy rain on Saturday, May 4, 2024, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil.
Carlos Macedo/AP
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People evacuate on surfboards from a community flooded by heavy rain on Saturday, May 4, 2024, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil.
Carlos Macedo/AP
During a Mass at the Vatican on Sunday, Pope Francis said he was praying for the country’s people. “May the Lord welcome the dead and comfort their families and those who had to abandon their homes,” he said.
The downpours started on Monday and are expected to continue into Sunday. Brazil’s National Meteorological Institute, known by its Portuguese abbreviation INMET, said on Thursday that more than 300 millimeters (11.8 inches) of rain had fallen in less than a week in some areas, including valleys, hillsides and cities.
The heavy rains are the fourth such environmental disaster in the state in a year, following floods in July, September and November 2023 that killed 75 people.
Weather in South America is affected by El Niño, a cyclic, naturally occurring event that causes surface waters to warm in the equatorial Pacific. In Brazil, El Niño has historically caused droughts in the north and heavy rainfall in the south.
This year, the impact of El Niño has been particularly severe, with a historic drought in the Amazon. Scientists say extreme weather is occurring with increasing frequency due to human-caused climate change.
“These tragedies will continue to happen, and they will get worse and more frequent,” said Suely Araújo, public policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, a network of dozens of environmental and a network of social groups.
Brazil needs to adapt to the effects of climate change, she said in a statement on Friday, referring to a process called adaptation.
