Survivors spent three days on rooftops waiting for help after a cyclone in Brazil

Three days after a severe cyclone hit the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, in the south of the country, this Wednesday, a large number of survivors are still on rooftops, waiting to be rescued by boats or helicopters that have not yet had time to escape . nevertheless managed to reach all the affected areas. The new partial balance released this Wednesday morning, September 6, by the regional government, has updated the death toll to 28, making this cyclone, the fifth of the year in Rio Grande do Sul, the biggest natural tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul. state.

There is no official number of people waiting on rooftops, not least because much of the center and north of Rio Grande do Sul is without electricity and landline or mobile phone, but the Civil Protection reported that the number of victims is high waiting for help on rooftops buildings in completely isolated locations. Early this Wednesday morning, one of the two helicopters with night vision devices operating in the area of ​​the tragedy managed at great cost to rescue a couple with a newborn child from a roof in Muchum, which was soaked through. , hungry and at risk to their lives due to the low temperatures that came along with the hurricane.

Like them, many other survivors are in cities completely isolated from the rest of the country, where people are trying to survive on hope and faith alone, as they don’t know what’s going on outside and when the rescue teams will arrive. The situation is most critical in the Takuari Valley, a region in the middle of the state consisting of 36 small towns unable to respond to a tragedy of this magnitude, and where the Takuari River, which flows through the entire territory, is frightening in places, a meter above the normal level.

In the valley, the most affected cities are Muchum, Roca Sales, Encantado and Laheado. The bridges connecting these cities were torn down by flooding, leaving the municipalities isolated from the rest of Brazil and without any infrastructure, as persistent winds of over 100 km per hour and torrential rain since Sunday destroyed the city. All.

At Muchum, for example, the waters of the Takuari river reached places where they were never supposed to reach, and all over the city of about 5,000 people one can see only the roofs of rare houses that had more than two floors, and everything else is submerged. In Roca Sales, firefighters rescue people in boats at the height of the second floor of houses, such is the height of the water from the river mixed with heavy rain.

In total, 88 cities in Rio Grande do Sul were affected by the cyclone, 67 of which suffered very seriously, and among them several were simply erased from the map of Brazil, leaving nothing surviving. The strength of the hurricane was so great that even in cities located on high points, such as Santa Teresa in the mountainous region of Rio Grande do Sul, dozens of houses were torn off their foundations and whole pieces were blown down the mountain to the ground. the despair of many, unable to do anything about it, nothing else, they watched the loss of everything that they managed to collect all their lives, mixing tears of sadness from the loss with tears of joy from the fact that they managed to save at least their own lives.

With a delay that some critical voices say could have been avoided had President Lula da Silva been less involved in international issues and more attentive to what is happening in Brazil, the federal government sent a delegation of ministers this Wednesday to fly around regions. most affected, determine the extent of the tragedy, and estimate what it will take to rebuild cities, when in fact it will require a massive dispatch of rescue teams, boats, air resources, supplies, water and medical supplies. Despite all the tragedy that has already wiped out part of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which is more than three times the size of Portugal and has almost the same number of inhabitants, there is now concern about what could happen to regions that are still small. affected., but which in the coming hours and days will receive huge excess volumes of water from rivers that are significantly above the level and flow into them.