The body of a 17-year-old teenager who disappeared in a landslide in the municipality of Santa Maria, in southern Brazil, was rescued this Thursday by police officers. He is one of the fatalities caused by the storm of heavy rain that has occurred since the beginning of the week in Río Grande do Sul, a state bordering Uruguay and Argentina. This Friday, state authorities have raised the number of deaths to 37 people and those missing to 74. Among the latter, the teenager’s mother. Her father and her brother were able to be rescued after her home was hit by a rock in a landslide, according to digital media G1. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, visited. on Thursday the affected region.
The storm has affected more than half of the municipalities in that state, which has 11 million inhabitants. Some 23,000 people have had to leave their homes because heavy rainfall and flooding persist. The storm, which began at the beginning of the week, has moved north, towards the state of Santa Catarina.
State authorities have ordered residents of 10 municipalities who live on the banks of rivers to leave their homes and take refuge in public places or in high areas. Among the affected municipalities, some are very popular for domestic tourism such as Bento Gonçalves, in the Vineyards Valley, or Gramado. Heavy rainfall has caused a partial dam failure on the Antas River and another is at risk of failing. More than half a million homes are without water and some 330,000 without electricity.
Extreme weather phenomena have occurred in the last year in Rio Grande do Norte, where last September a cyclone killed about 30 people.
President Lula met in Santa Maria, the epicenter of the tragedy, with the governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, but was unable to fly over the area due to bad weather. “The federal government will be 100% with the people of Rio Grande do Sul to assist them with resources so that we can repair the damage,” said the president, who insisted that “there will be no shortage of help,” Efe reports.
For Governor Leite, this is “the worst disaster in history” in the state he governs. The Armed Forces have deployed an operation with eight aircraft and 600 soldiers, which may be expanded if the storm does not subside. The authorities are very attentive to the Guaíba River, which has risen three meters and has begun to overflow as it passes through the state capital, Porto Alegre.
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