The death toll from floods and mudslides triggered by torrential storms in southern Brazil on Friday climbed to 39, officials said, as they warned of worse to come.
As the rain kept beating down, rescuers in boats and planes searched for scores of people reported missing among the ruins of collapsed homes, bridges and roads.
Rising water levels in the state of Rio Grande do Sul were straining dams and threatening the metropolis capital, Porto Alegre, with “unprecedented” flooding, authorities said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Forget everything you’ve seen, it’s going to be much worse in the metropolitan region,” Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite said as the streets of the state capital, with a population of about 1.5 million, started flooding after days of heavy downpours in the region.
The Rio Grande do Sul Civil Defense Department said that at least 265 municipalities had sustained storm damage since Monday, injuring 74 people and displacing more than 24,000 — one-third of whom have been brought to shelters.
At least 68 people were missing, and more than 350,000 have experienced some form of property damage, the latest data showed.
Photo: Reuters
Meanwhile, officials were reporting an “emergency situation, presenting a risk of collapse” at four dams in the state.
The level of the state’s main Guiaba River was estimated to have risen 4.2m to 4.6m, but could not be measured as the gauges have washed away, Porto Alegre Mayor Sebastiao Melo said.
As it kept rising, officials raced to reinforced flood protection. Porto Alegre’s worst recorded flood was in 1941, when the river reached 4.71m.
Elsewhere in the state, several cities and towns have been completely cut off in what Leite described as “the worst disaster in the history” of the state.
Many communities have been left without access to drinking water, or telephone or Internet services. Tens of thousands have no electricity.
“I feel very sorry for all those who live here... I feel pain in my heart,” said Maria Luiza, a 51-year-old resident of Sao Sebastiao do Cai.
In Capela de Santana, north of the state capital, Raul Metzel said that his neighbors had to abandon their livestock.
“You don’t know if the water will continue to rise or what will happen to the animals, they may soon drown,” he said.
Climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino on Friday said that the devastating storms were the result of a “disastrous cocktail” of global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon.
South America’s largest country has experienced a string of extreme weather events, including a cyclone in September last year that claimed at least 31 lives.
Aquino said the region’s particular geography meant it was often confronted by the effects of tropical and polar air masses colliding, but these events have “intensified due to climate change.”
When they coincide with El Nino, a periodic weather system that warms the tropical Pacific, the atmosphere becomes more unstable, he said.
Extreme flooding hit the state in the past two years at “a level of recurrence not seen in 10,000 years,” said Aquino, who heads the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul’s geography department.
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