The discovery of two more fatalities from the floods that have hit Rio Grande do Sul since late April raises the death toll from the tragedy in the southern Brazilian state to 151, but the number of missing and homeless people has begun to rise. a fall. The data was published this Thursday in a new partial report from Civil Defense.
According to a new survey, the number of missing people this Thursday is 104, eight less than in the previous day’s survey. The number of missing people reached 146 days ago, but it has been declining along with the location of some bodies and, fortunately, in most cases, the discovery of missing people in shelters.
The number of people forced to flee their homes due to the strong hurricanes that devastated the largest state in southern Brazil was confirmed by the Civil Protection Service this Thursday at just over 615 thousand. That’s a very large number, but it reached more than 650,000 before rainwater and river floods began to fall and allowed a few thousand more people to return to their homes, or what was left of them.
Despite the beginning of some improvement in the situation in some cities, the image of Rio Grande do Sul, a rich agricultural state with a strong Portuguese and German presence, continues to be one of chaos and devastation, with thousands of fire-rescue workers, army and volunteers still having to deploy , to rescue people still stranded, or to receive and distribute water, clothing, supplies and medicine. Dozens of cities remain isolated as bridges and roads collapse and the capital of Porto Alegre, home to almost 1.5 million residents, continued to operate Thursday with large swathes of its neighborhoods flooded, thousands of homes, businesses and hospitals were destroyed or seriously damaged. damaged.
The water level of the Guaiba River, which forms a giant lake in the Porto Alegre region, dropped to less than 5 meters at dawn this Thursday for the first time in a week. But it is still well above 3 meters – the point at which the city begins to flood.
At 10 a.m. local time and 2 p.m. in Lisbon, Guaiba’s height was 4.98 meters. This means that in large parts of the elegant capital of Rio Grande do Sul, there is 1.98 m of dirty and contaminated water in the streets, avenues and in people’s homes, making any attempt at a restart unfeasible for now.