Death toll from southern Brazil rainfall keep climbing, many still missing
Entire towns are submerged, roads are washed out, and a statewide operation is underway in Rio Grande Desoul, roughly a week after the deluge began. In southern Brazil, in the streets of canoes, boat scour buildings and rooftops and local residents in waist high, Muddy Waters make a human chain to pull the boats and ferry people to safety. Elsewhere, others are airlifted with their children in their arms. We have removed all the people who were on their roofs. Now we are removing people stuck in the second and third floors of their houses. The death toll is climbing. More than 100 people are missing, and the storms have impacted nearly 2/3 of the state’s 497 cities, including in the capital Porto Alegre, a city of nearly 1.4 million people where the Guaipa River burst its banks on Sunday and recorded its highest ever water levels. From above, President Lula da Silva and a team of ministers in Congress surveyed the damage. I put them all on the helicopter and came here so that we could see what the floods mean together with the governor. So they saw the damage the rain is causing because it’s still happening in the city of Puerto Ric and the state of Rio Grande. This is the fourth such environmental disaster in the state in a year following floods in July, September and November, while South America is periodically affected by the El Nino phenomenon. The impacts are growing increasingly dramatic and extreme weather events are expected to be more frequent due to climate change.