At least 57 people killed, hundreds missing as heavy rain and flooding lashes Brazil

Until the end of the week, at least 57 people are confirmed dead and further 373 were missing, this is due to the heavy rains and flooding which are currently affecting the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

As many as 34 persons are dead and 74 others injured in the aftermath of the storm of catastrophic floods which has now affected 281 localities, based on the latest official data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs Saturday.

A calamity state decreed by the local government in areas with 67,000 people, or more, affected by the emergency. About 9 thousands are displaced already and more than 4,5 thousand lives in refugee conditions now, the civil defense authority said.

Authorities are paying very close attention to but say, there is no expected failure to occur for the few dams that no way can handle such high level of water at the moment.

View of a flooded house at the Sarandi neighborhood in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil on May 3, 2024.

Anselmo Cunha/AFP/Getty Images

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met with local officials overseeing the relief efforts Thursday.

“We are witnessing a historic disaster, unfortunately,” said the state’s governor, Eduardo Leite. “The material losses are gigantic, but our focus at this moment is rescues. There are still people waiting for help.”

Around 7 are symbol with the nex day on Saturday in the morning, the residents who dwell around the Guaiba Lake grew 5 meters high due to the intense rains which endangered the state’s capital city Porto Alegre, according to the civil defense.

The foundation is jointly working with the very good friend of the Brazilian fashion model Gisele Bundchen who runs the fund to deliver help to the survivors of the floods.
Rio Grande do Sul is more and more acquainted with the frequent occurrence of extreme climatic phenomena recently. Both the state and month is September endured a sub-tropical cyclone in which more than 54 people died. Up to this date, the number of deaths this year has already gone beyond his three-digit record.

The climate crisis, which is mainly a human-made problem as a consequence of human use of fossil fuel, thus boosts the power of extreme weather events happening all over the globe which by a turn makes them more intensive and more frequent.

Volunteers use a fishing boat to rescue residents trapped inside their houses in São Sebastião do Cai, Rio Grande do Sul state.

Volunteers fighting the flood use a boat to rescue people inside their dwelling houses located in San Sebastiano, the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
Anselmo Cunha/AFP/Getty Images

In the past couple of weeks alone, unprecedented and deadly floods have occurred in the Arabian city of Dubai lifting the waves formerly known as the desert, while in Southeast Asia reservoirs have begun to dry up in a persistent regional heatwave along with the region’s drought. In Kenya, the government was taken by surprise when almost 200 Kenyans were reported to have died while battling flood and heavy

Last year the planet was hottest according to the records of ever since with air and ocean temperatures climbed above those that most of scientists expected to stay till 2030. The Earth is already at 1.2 degree Celsius hotter than it was in the start of the industrial period.

The number of hurricanes with high intensity, that is, tropical cyclone, has increased in the recent past due to the rising of the global temperatures said by the UN organization. As heat waves are occurrence more often and persevering longer.