11:46 AM
Floods caused by intense rains hitting southern Brazil left at least 56 dead and 67 missingaccording to a new balance from the Civil Defense this Saturday.
The climate disaster keeps roads and communications interrupted in the state of Río Grande do Sul, with almost 300 locations affected.
The floods have seriously affected the capital, Porto Alegre, one of the largest cities in southern Brazil, since Friday. with a population of 1.5 million.
The rapid rise in the last hours of the Guaíba River, located in the city, flooded the historic center.
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Numerous streets in other sectors woke up under water and residents were determined to evacuate their homes., confirmed the AFP. This is possibly the largest flood in the history of Porto Alegre.
“Despite the great containment effort, the dam that dams the Gravataí River (…) began to overflow again. “The communities must leave the place.”wrote the mayor of Porto Alegre, Sebastiao Melo, on platform
“Forget everything you’ve already seen (…) in the metropolitan region it’s going to be much worse”, warned the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, on Friday. And the Porto Alegre international airport suspended its operations for an indefinite period.
There are 24,600 evacuees in the territory
In the state, rescue brigades are trying to reach and supply numerous isolated municipalities, without communications and with blocked roads, and even without electricity or water.
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Civil Defense reported that There are 74 injured and 24,600 evacuated.
The authorities are working to build shelters in sports centers and other facilities, which so far have received more than 8,200 people throughout the state.
In one of them, installed in a cultural center in Gravataí, a suburb in the north of Porto Alegre, is Claudio Almiro.
“When I left the house, I was in water up to my waist”, this 55-year-old man tells AFP with a haggard face. “I lost everything”.
Aerial images of the area show huge surfaces completely flooded, bridges and roads washed away, and rescues of people on roofs with helicopters, accounting for the “worst disaster” in the history of the state, according to Leite.
The forecast anticipates rain until Sunday “very high severity” that will further load the rivers and may cause large landslides, Civil Defense said on Friday.
The rains impact the southern state of Santa Catarina as wellwhere the death of a man was recorded on Friday when his car was swept away by the current in the municipality of Ipira.
The “disastrous cocktail” of climate change and the El Niño meteorological phenomenon favored the devastating rains that hit southern Brazil and other extreme events, Brazilian climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino told AFP.
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