At least 11 killed as storm batters Brazil
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The storm system that struck the country was an extra-tropical cyclone.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MAQUINE - A winter storm slammed the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul
Some 20 people were missing, prompting a helicopter search and rescue for victims wading in flooded neighbourhoods, the authorities said. The storm system that struck the country was an extra-tropical cyclone.
Meteorologists with the US National Weather Service said that such storms have cold air at their core and are typically associated with cold fronts.
Governor of Rio Grande do Sul Eduardo Leite said on Twitter that the main priority was “to find the missing and save people who may still be stranded by the floods”.
The government of Rio Grande do Sul said dozens of residents in Maquine – a municipality on the eastern coast and one of the areas hardest hit by the storm – who were forced out of their homes trekked to shelters for food and dry clothes.
The authorities there issued a warning for a risk of landslides.
As at Friday night, Maquine had received nearly 0.3m of rain in one day, damaging rural properties and homes, the authorities said in a news release.
On some streets in Maquine, the flooding was so severe that “part of the asphalt had eroded”.
The rain was also threatening the area’s agriculture, the backbone of Maquine’s economy.
Officials said that as at Friday night, one property in the city had suffered a total loss of its lettuce production.
The authorities said that in total, more than 2,300 people in the state were seeking shelter after the storm.
A video from the Rio Grande do Sul government showed a rescuer in a wetsuit pulling a man and a dog up into a helicopter as mud-coloured floodwaters swirled below.
Photos showed firefighters trudging through swamped, graffiti-covered streets as they carried a person in a wheelchair. The wheels of the firefighters’ vehicle were half-submerged.
Firefighters also rescued patients from a flooded healthcare centre in Sapiranga, a city about 120km west of Maquine. A photo of that rescue shows a man lying on a boat inside the healthcare centre.
Brazil has experienced deadly storms in the recent past. In 2021, at least 20 people were killed after floods swept through the country’s north-eastern region.
In 2020, heavy rains in south-eastern Brazil killed at least 47 people and forced more than 18,000 from their homes.
A powerful summer storm in Rio de Janeiro in 2019 killed at least six people as streets turned into rivers and mudslides destroyed homes and buried a bus, where two of the dead were found.
Some 20 people were missing, prompting a helicopter search and rescue for victims wading in flooded neighbourhoods.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In 2022, powerful mudslides and flooding swept through a mountainous region north of Rio de Janeiro, dumping a month’s worth of rain overnight and killing at least 94 people.
Flooding is a complex phenomenon with causes including land development and ground conditions.
While linking climate change to a single flood event requires extensive scientific analysis, climate change – which is already causing heavier rainfall in many storms – is an increasingly important part of the mix.
Warmer atmosphere holds, and releases, more water, whether in the form of rain or heavy winter snowpack. NYTIMES
