More than 500 thousand people have been displaced by floods in Brazil

The number of homeless people in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, which has faced the greatest climate tragedy in its history since April 29 and is experiencing the drama of severe floods that have already affected 88% of its territory, exceeded 500 thousand this Saturday .

The figure was proposed by Civil Defense in a new preliminary assessment of the tragedy published on Saturday evening.

According to a new report, there were 537,380 homeless people in Rio Grande do Sul this Saturday – an unimaginable number before it became a tragic reality, and which far dwarfs all the tragedies that have occurred in this Brazilian state in recent decades.

The current number, achieved after just eleven days of heavy rain, is dizzyingly close to the sum of all the natural tragedies that have occurred in Rio Grande do Sul over the past 31 years, from 1991 to 2022, a period during which, at various moments and tragedies, 702,916 people were forced to leave their homes.

And things could get worse, much worse, as weather forecasts predict even heavier rainfall in the coming days, causing more flooding and affecting more people.

Even in the best of scenarios, if the rains that punish this Brazilian state with a very strong European influence, mainly from the Portuguese and Germans, were to stop completely, the number of tragedies would, unfortunately, continue to grow, since the entire immensity of the accumulated to date time of water in the northern and central regions of Rio Grande do Sul, it will begin to descend towards the southern region, the only one so far relatively intact, and will overflow its banks and flood cities that escaped the storms of the last century. two weeks.

As of this Saturday, of the 497 municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul, 446 were affected by floods.

This means that more than two million residents of these territories, 2,115,416 people to be exact, were affected in one way or another by the tragedy, losing their home, losing family and friends, or having their lives changed by losing their jobs or being unemployed. . basic government services such as hospitals and schools, or without water and electricity.

The number of people killed in floods remained stable for the first time in recent days, with the death toll from the tragedy remaining at 136, according to a new bulletin.

The number of missing has dropped slightly from 128 in the previous bulletin issued this morning to 125, but is nonetheless an alarming figure, especially as there are still isolated places where we have no idea of ​​the number of casualties. .