The storm of heavy and persistent rains that has hit the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul left a devastating panorama in its capital, Porto Alegre, a prosperous city of 1.3 million inhabitants that has never seen anything like it. The Guaíba River flooded some of the most central neighborhoods, forcing bridges and roads to be cut and the airport to close at least until the end of May. Tens of thousands of residents of this Brazilian state bordering Argentina and Uruguay do not have electricity or drinking water. There is even a risk of food shortages. “What you see on television is not even half of what is happening. This is our Katrina, our tsunamian enormous catastrophe,” Fernanda de Carvalho, a young woman who, like many other residents of the capital, has spent days without sleeping a wink, helping in the rescue efforts, says Fernanda de Carvalho, on the verge of tears, from Porto Alegre.
According to the latest official report from the Civil Defense, as of Tuesday afternoon, in the entire state of Rio Grande do Sul there are 95 dead, 131 missing and 372 injured. In addition, there are 207,000 people outside their homes. It hasn’t rained for two days, but the situation is not improving. The flow of the rivers remains stable or continues to rise slightly and now the fear is the arrival of a new cold front that will predictably bring more rain and a drastic drop in temperatures.
De Carvalho, a communications analyst, lives in a neighborhood that is not one of the worst affected, so he took advantage of his relatively safe situation to roll up his sleeves and help. She participates in a WhatsApp group in which 400 people exchange information about isolated people who need to be rescued. “There are families who have been sheltering on the roof for two or three days, without food, without medicine (…) in a neighborhood of Canoas [una ciudad cercana] We have a house with 13 people without drinking water,” he says. His mission is to contrast the information that arrives – he regrets that misinformation abounds – and to make contacts, because there is always someone who knows someone, from a military man with lifeboats to individuals with small boats. Recently she and her friends managed to bring 15 jet skis from a coastal city.
The Civil Defense teams of the Government of Rio Grande do Sul do what they can, but they cannot cope. In Porto Alegre the situation began to get dramatic starting on Friday, with the flooding of the Guaíba River, the worst since 1941. The river reached 5.33 meters high, well above the three meters that mark the limit from from which the city can flood. The translation is visible from a bird’s eye view, as aerial images show: a good part of the city literally underwater, including symbolic buildings such as the Municipal Market or its soccer stadiums.
On Monday, local authorities evacuated the neighborhoods of Menino Deus and Cidade Baixa, adjacent to the historic center. De Carvalho was in the area helping with the rescues with her motorcycle, but she had to leave the area for fear of being trapped.
In the city of Porto Alegre alone there are 9,800 people sheltered in schools, sports centers or shopping centers. Many others sought temporary shelter in the homes of friends or family. Far from improving as the days go by, the number of evicted people continues to increase. This Tuesday, the mayor of Eldorado do Sul, a city next to Porto Alegre, stated that its entire population must be evacuated: more than 40,000 people who have nowhere to go.
The situation is not only desperate for those who lost their home or had to leave it temporarily, but also for the thousands of neighbors who remain in their homes without electricity or water supply, the vast majority. Although there is water everywhere, paradoxically, in 85% of the city not a drop comes out of the taps because the pumping stations are damaged.
A Brazilian Navy aircraft carrier (the largest in Latin America) loaded with two mobile water treatment stations, capable of producing 20,000 liters of drinking water per hour, is expected to arrive in Porto Alegre on Wednesday.
Communications throughout Rio Grande do Sul are very precarious, and the final straw was the closure of the Porto Alegre airport. The companies began to cancel flights on Friday the 3rd, when the runway began to flood, but the company that manages the airport threw in the towel definitively on Monday, with the terminal completely flooded. Initially, the airfield will be closed “for an indefinite period,” although the concessionaire hopes to be able to open it around May 30. Meanwhile, the small Canoas air base, next to the capital, is used to receive aid arriving from all over Brazil.
The residents of Porto Alegre have one eye on the brown water that floods their streets and another on the sky. The rain gave a respite in the last two days, but by mid-week instability is expected to return and a new enemy will appear: the cold. Temperatures could fall between four and eight degrees in the southwest of the state and be around 12 degrees Celsius in Porto Alegre. The authorities fear that the evicted people who lost their homes and barely have food and water will suffer hypothermia.
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