The BRICS group of nations pledged a billion dollars for storm-ravaged southern Brazil on Tuesday, as slowly receding floodwaters began to reveal the full extent of the devastation.
An unprecedented multi-day deluge has claimed at least 149 lives in the stricken state of Rio Grande do Sul, while 124 people are still missing, according to official figures.
More than 600,000 people were forced to leave their homes due to flooding in more than 400 cities and towns. About 80,000 have taken refuge in shelters.
The BRICS bank — a grouping that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — said Tuesday it would release the equivalent of more than a billion dollars to help the stricken state.
The money will help “rebuild urban and rural infrastructure,” New Development Bank head Dilma Rousseff, a former president of Brazil, told X.
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Tons of donations continued to arrive in Rio Grande do Sul on Tuesday, where a massive rescue and relief effort has been underway for nearly two weeks — the largest logistical operation in the state’s history.
Brazil’s federal government has also pledged about $10 billion to rebuild the region, with roads, bridges, schools and hospitals destroyed and thousands of residents relying on handouts for food, drinking water, medicine, clothing and mattresses.
In the municipality of Cruzeiro do Sul, which has about 11,600 residents, the water “went over the roof of our house,” Silvio Kell, a 40-year-old painter, told AFP.
After experiencing their third flood there, Kehl, his wife and four-month-old daughter are now leaving “before something worse happens”.
Nearby, 61-year-old Nelson Xavier contemplated the ruins of the destroyed concrete plant.
“It’s been 30 years of work, struggle and now we’ve lost everything,” he said.
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“I would like to reopen and have employees … but it’s impossible, I don’t have the strength anymore.”
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The Guaiba, an estuary bordering the state capital of Porto Alegre, which overflows when its level reaches three meters (about 9.8 feet), reached a record height of 5.3 meters last week and was set at 5 ,2 meters on Tuesday.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to visit the region on Wednesday for the third time.
On Monday, his administration sent a proposal to Congress to suspend the repayment of the state’s debt for a period of three years.
The floods are the latest extreme weather event to hit Brazil, following record-breaking forest fires, unprecedented heat and drought.
The government and experts have blamed the El NiΓ±o weather phenomenon, exacerbated by climate change.
Environment Minister Marina Silva told AFP on Tuesday that the tragedy underlined the need to build cities resilient to climate change.
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“We will have to adapt because climate change has already arrived… (to) create resilient cities, plans to manage risks and not just disasters,” he said.
This could involve relocating communities to areas at risk and planting protective vegetation in flood zones.
Referring to Lula’s comments that Brazil was not prepared for the disaster, Silva said: βBrazil is part of the world, which is not prepared.
“For more than 30 years it’s been said that the problem is fossil fuel use, deforestation. And unfortunately, as humanity, we haven’t done the work” necessary to slow down the greenhouse gas emissions that warm the planet.
The floods have also displaced more than 3,000 people in neighboring Uruguay.
Source: AFP