Floods in Brazil have killed at least 66 people and forced nearly 80,000 people from their homes
Floods that have been devastating southern Brazil for several days have driven more than 80,000 people from their homes, according to authorities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. After initially mentioning 55 deaths, civil defense reported a death toll of 66 in bad weather on Sunday May 5. She specified that seven deaths were the subject of an “investigation”. The floods also left 101 missing and many injured.
The situation is “dramatic” And “absolutely unprecedented“, declared Eduardo Leite, the governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Nearly 320 localities in the region are affected and a million homes are deprived of water. A large part of these municipalities find themselves isolated, roads having been cut by floods or landslides and communications disrupted.
The authorities gave orders to evacuate certain neighborhoods of Porto Alegre, a metropolis with some 1.4 million inhabitants, located at the confluence of several rivers. With the rising waters of the Guaiba, an emblematic river in the south of the country, floods have hit the city hard, where the airport has been closed since Friday. According to Brazilian weather services, the rains were decreasing on Saturday, but were expected to continue for another 24 to 36 hours.
The state of Rio Grande do Sul has already been hit several times by deadly bad weather, notably in September, when 31 people died after the passage of a devastating cyclone. According to experts, these extreme climatic phenomena have increased in frequency and intensity due to global warming caused by human activity.
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