Historic Floods Kill 80, Leaving Brazil Shaken

The airport is shut down. Dozens of highways have been blocked. Most in the state capital are without running water. And the death toll is already at 80 – and sure to climb higher.

Even in a country increasingly inured to natural disasters driven by climate change, the flooding that has slammed into Rio Grande do Sul, one of Brazil’s most prosperous states, has badly shaken this nation of 215 million. With more than half the cities in the state dealing with flooding, and 20,000 left homeless, Rio Grande do Sul hasn’t just been damaged. It has been crippled.

“This is the worst disaster ever registered in the state of Rio Grande do Sul,” state Gov. Eduardo Leite said. “Perhaps one of the worst disasters that the country has registered in recent history.”

In recent years, Brazil has often grappled with natural disasters: record rains, devastating floods, crippling droughts and deadly landslides. Political leaders and scientists here have never been shy about blaming climate change and calling for greater action – rhetoric that has often failed to materialize into concrete plans.

But the public comments this time appeared far more urgent.

During a flyover of the devastation Sunday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appeared to be openly moved, according to senior aides who accompanied the president and spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss his reactions.

His mood was “a mixture of agony and anger,” said one adviser. “He kept saying, ‘Oh, my God. Look at this.’”

After he landed, he told aides his comments needed to reflect the magnitude of the disaster. He held a meeting with senior congressional and judicial officials, saying Brazil needed to change how it approached climate disasters. He called for the creation of a national plan to prevent “climatic accidents,” tasking top environmental lieutenant Marina Silva to begin formulating a strategy.

“We have to stop just running after disaster,” Lula said. “We have to start preparing for what can happen from disasters.”

In a comment exclusively provided to The Washington Post, Lula said he blamed the devastation in Rio Grande do Sul on the failures of the global community to respond to climate change. He said there was a “historic debt.” Poorer countries that have historically emitted few greenhouse gases, he said, are suffering due to the pollution of wealthier nations.

“This was the third record flood in the same region of the country in less than a year,” Lula told The Post. “We and the world need to prepare every day more with plans and resources to deal with extreme climate occurrences.”

In 10 days, Rio Grande do Sul was soaked by the equivalent of three months’ worth of rain. The Guaíba River, which hugs the Porto Alegre coast and is fed by a network of engorged tributaries, swelled to a record height of 5 meters. It gushed its muddy waters into the city and submerged much of its cosmopolitan downtown.

The base scenario in the city is not likely to change for several weeks, and could worsen. Scientists predict that the Guaíba won’t drop below 3 meters – the river’s flood limit – until the end of May. Meanwhile, temperatures are expected to lower to 50 degrees in the coming days, increasing the risk for hypothermia, as rains refuse to relent and cities teeter on the precipice of anarchy.

Resembling scenes from Houston post-Hurricane Harvey, or New Orleans post-Katrina, people all over the flood zone are stranded atop roofs. Hospitals are without power. Widespread looting has broken out. A gas station exploded in north Porto Alegre. Inmates at local prisons that suffered flooding have been released. With roads shut down and the airport closed until at least May 30, there are few means of escape.

On Friday and Saturday, one woman with her parents in a Porto Alegre suburb documented on social media her fears as the waters rose. “I’m with two elderly people who can’t climb up onto the roof,” she wrote, according to a story in O Globo. “We’re going to die drowned. Send help, by the love of God.”

The family was ultimately saved the next day, as her mother showed signs of hypothermia.

Panic and uncertainty are now ripping through the state, as thousands live without power, access to the internet or even potable water.

The mayor of the suburb Canoas, which has been devastated by the flooding, announced that nine patients had died in a critical care unit after the hospital lost power – only to later correct himself and say he’d been wrong.

“It’s chaos here,” said journalist Kelly Matos. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

She said she recently went to a market and didn’t find a single bottle of water. Others are trying to bathe with sparkling water.

“This is war; that is the word,” she said. “It’s hopelessness, civil unrest. … The tsunami is here.”

(c) Washington Post