More rain is coming down in Brazil’s already flooded Rio Grande do Sul state, where many of those remaining are poor people with limited ability to move to less dangerous areas.
More than 150mm (nearly 6 inches) of rain could fall over the weekend and will probably worsen flooding, according to the Friday afternoon bulletin from Brazil’s national meteorology institute.
It said there was also a high likelihood that winds will intensify and water levels rise in the Patos lagoon next to the state capital, Porto Alegre, and the surrounding area.
On Saturday afternoon, heavy rains were falling in the northern and central regions of the state, and water levels were rising.
Carlos Sampaio, 62, lives in a low-income community next to soccer club Gremio’s stadium in Porto Alegre. His two-story home doubles as a sports bar.
Even though the first floor is flooded, he said he won't leave, partly out of fear of looters in his high-crime neighbourhood, where police carry assault rifles as they patrol its flooded streets.
But Sampaio also has nowhere else to go, he said.
“I am analysing how safe I am, and I know that my belongings aren't safe at all,” Sampaio said.
“As long as I can fight for what is mine, within my abilities to not leave myself exposed, I will fight.”
At least 136 people have died in the floods since they began last week, and 125 more are missing, local authorities say.
The number of people displaced from their homes due to the torrential rains has surpassed 400,000, of whom 70,000 are sheltering in gyms, schools and other temporary locations.
“I came here on Monday — lost my apartment to the flood," Matheus Vicari, a 32-year-old Uber driver, said inside a shelter where he is staying with his young son.
"I don’t spent a lot of time here. I try to be out to think about something else.”
Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains. – AP
Some residents of Rio Grande do Sul state have found sanctuary at second homes, including Alexandra Zanela, who co-owns a content agency in Porto Alegre.
Zanela and her partner volunteered when the floods began, but chose to move out after frequent electricity and water cuts.
She headed to the beachfront city of Capao da Canoa – so far unaffected by flooding – where her partner’s family owns a summer home.
“We took a ride with my sister-in-law, took our two cats, my mother and a friend of hers and came here safely. We left the Porto Alegre chaos,” Zanela, 42, said.
“It is very clear that those who have the privilege to leave are in a much safer position, and those living in the poorer areas of Porto Alegre have no option.”
In Brazil, the poor often live in houses built from less resilient materials such as wood and in unregulated areas more vulnerable to damage from extreme weather, such as low-lying areas or on steep hillsides.
“We cannot say that the worst is over,” Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite said on social media Friday. The day before, he estimated that 19 billion reais ($3.7 billion) will be needed to rebuild the state.
The scale of devastation may be most comparable to Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2005, Sergio Vale, chief economist at MB Associates, said.
Rio Grande do Sul has the sixth highest GDP per capita among Brazil's 26 states and the federal district, according to the national statistics institute. Many of the state's inhabitants descend from Italian and German immigrants.
People who lost their homes to flooding live in a truck trailer in Canoa. – AP
“In the popular imagination, the population of Rio Grande do Sul is seen as white and well-off, but this is not the reality,” said Marília Closs, a researcher at the CIPO Platform, a climate think tank.
“It’s very important to dispel this fiction, because it’s constructed with a political objective” to erase Black and poor residents, she said.
In Canoas, one of the hardest-hit cities in the state, Paulo Cezar Wolf’s small wooden house has been fully submerged, along with all his belongings. A truck driver, the Black man now lives in the back of a loaned truck with six of his neighbours, who all cook, eat and sleep there.
Wolf, 54, has considered leaving the rural region, where he has lived since childhood, but has nowhere else to go and doesn’t want to leave behind his four adult children.
“It is too late for someone like me to move somewhere else,” Wolf said, wearing a donated sweatshirt as he stood on a highway.
The meteorology institute predicts the arrival of a mass of cold and dry air will reduce the chance of rain beginning Monday.
But it also means temperatures are set to drop sharply, to around freezing by Wednesday. That makes hypothermia a concern for those who are wet and lacking electricity.
A man rows a makeshift boat through an inundated street flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre. – AP
Churches, businesses, schools and ordinary citizens around the country have been rallying to provide support.
The United Nations refugee agency is distributing blankets and mattresses. It is sending additional items, such as emergency shelters, kitchen sets, blankets, solar lamps and hygiene kits, from its stockpiles in northern Brazil and elsewhere in the region.
On Thursday, Brazil’s federal government announced a package of 50.9 billion reais ($10 billion) for employees, beneficiaries of social programs, the state and municipalities, companies and rural producers in Rio Grande do Sul.
The same day, the Brazilian air force parachuted over two tons of food and water to areas that are inaccessible due to blocked roads.
The navy has sent three vessels to help those affected, among them the Atlantic Multipurpose Aircraft Ship, which it said is considered the largest warship in Latin America.
The United States has sent $20,000 for personal hygiene kits and cleaning supplies and will be providing an additional $100,000 in humanitarian assistance through existing regional programs, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Gas cylinders float in flood water at a gas distribution center after heavy rains in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state. – AP