RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Massive flooding in Brazil’s southern state of Rio Grande do Sul has killed at least 75 people in the past seven days and another 103 people have been reported missing, officials said. local authorities on Sunday.
At least 155 people were injured, while rain damage forced more than 88,000 people from their homes. Around 16,000 people took shelter in schools, gymnasiums and other temporary shelters.
The floods left a devastating wake, including landslides, washed out roads and collapsed bridges across the state. Operators reported power and communications outages. More than 800,000 people are deprived of water supply, according to civil protection, which cites figures from the Corsan water company.
A rescue team transported an elderly man in serious health condition in a helicopter from a remote area in the municipality of Bento Gonçalves, according to footage from military firefighters. Torrents of brown water poured over a nearby dam.
On Saturday evening, residents of the town of Canoas stood up in the muddy water and formed a human chain to pull the boats carrying the people to safety, according to video footage shared by local news network UOL.
The Guaiba River reached a record high of 5.33 meters (17.5 feet) on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. local time, surpassing levels seen during a historic flood in 1941, when the river reached 4. 76 meters.
“I repeat and I insist: the devastation to which we are subjected is unprecedented,” state Governor Eduardo Leite said Sunday morning. He previously said the state would need “a sort of ‘Marshall Plan’ to rebuild.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited Rio Grande do Sul for a second time on Sunday, accompanied, among others, by Defense Minister José Múcio, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad and Environment Minister Marina Silva. The left-wing leader and his team monitored the flooded streets of Porto Alegre from a helicopter.
“We must stop chasing disasters. We must predict in advance what disasters could occur and we must work,” Lula later told reporters.
During Sunday Mass at the Vatican, Pope Francis said he was praying for the people of the state. “May the Lord welcome the dead and comfort their families and those who have had to abandon their homes,” he said.
Showers started Monday and are expected to last through Sunday. In some areas, such as valleys, mountain slopes and cities, more than 300 millimeters (11.8 inches) of rain fell in less than a week, according to Brazil’s National Institute of Meteorology, known as Portuguese acronym INMET, Thursday.
These 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.
The weather in South America is affected by El Niño climatic phenomenon, a periodic, natural event that warms surface waters in the equatorial Pacific region. In Brazil, El Niño has always caused droughts in the north and intense rains in the south.
This year, the impacts of El Niño have been particularly dramatic, with a historic drought in the Amazon. Scientists say extreme weather events are occurring more frequently due to human-caused climate change.
“These tragedies will continue to happen, more and more serious and more and more frequent,” said Suely Araújo, public policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, a network of dozens of environmental and social groups.
Brazil must adapt to the effects of climate change, she said in a statement Friday, referring to a process known as adaptation.
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