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RIO DE JANEIRO – At least 20 people have died and more than 50,000 have fled their homes in the floods that ravaged northeastern Brazil, officials said on Tuesday.
The power of the waters flowing from the coastal land stunned Brazilians.
“We’ve had other floods, other fatal disasters, but this regional expansion, with so many cities and the number of people affected by this storm at the same time, is nothing, absolutely nothing,” Rui Costa said. Governor of the State of Bahia.
In some flooded neighborhoods as the dams collapsed, roofs were the only remaining sign of once-vibrant communities.
Rescuers used boats and helicopters to enter parts of Ilhéus, Itabuna, Irecê and hundreds of other cities. Volunteers distributed donations of food, mattresses and blankets to the poorest communities, while neighboring states sent planes and firefighters to assist the police and members of the armed forces.
Like regions large and small around the world that have been disrupted by climate change, Bahia has experienced extreme weather events in recent years.
For the past five years, Bahia and its neighbors to the northeast have suffered from a persistent drought. Earlier this month, however, the skies cleared and Bahia was rocked by exceptionally intermittent rains for weeks. This was the state’s heaviest rainfall in December in three decades. According to Brazil’s monitoring center for natural disasters.
Early one morning about two weeks ago, waters came for Gerisnon Vieira Lima and her family in the city of Guaratinga, in southern Bahia.
As the water level rose rapidly inside the house he shared with his 70-year-old mother and three other relatives, Mr. Vieira Lima rushed to save whatever furniture or possessions he could, even though he thought he would have another chance.
“I thought we’d come back after the rain stopped – but we couldn’t,” said the 35-year-old gas station attendant.
As he watched, his home was replaced by a flood of rubble.
Since then, Mr. Vieira Lima and his family have camped at his sister’s house while trying to recover from the trauma. “It’s very sad, very difficult,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The situation worsened over the Christmas holiday weekend after heavy rain caused two dams to collapse. The first eruption was on Saturday night in Vitória da Conquista in the southern part of the state, and the second on Sunday morning, 125 miles north, in Jussiape.
“There are more than 116 municipalities in the state of emergency,” said Valmir Assunção, a Brazilian congressman from Bahia. “The rains destroyed bridges, roads and homes in our state.”
Natalie Unterstell, president of the Talanoa Institute, a climate policy think tank in Brazil. latest United Nations report It offered “solid evidence” that such extreme weather conditions are the result of climate change.
“The warming of the ocean is particularly relevant to that,” he said. “In 2020, data showed that 80 percent of the seas are exposed to marine heatwaves, increasing disasters like those in Bahia.”
Ms Unterstell urged governments like Brazil to consider climate change when rebuilding. “Brazil was built for a climate that no longer exists,” he said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Assunção and other lawmakers met to push financial resources to rebuild the area. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced Emergency aid allocation equivalent to $35 million.
In mid-December, as the rains began, President Bolsonaro flew over some of the hardest-hit areas. But on Monday, when the rains peaked, she set off for the southern part of the country for a vacation. He is expected to return to Bahia early in the new year.
Speaking from the sands of Forte beach in São Francisco do Sul, Bolsonaro told a supporter Monday after the dams collapsed, “I hope I don’t have to be back sooner.” local media reported.
The president was criticized on social media for taking leave during the crisis.
“Bolsonaro went on vacation while our people were suffering from hunger, unemployment, inflation, epidemics and natural disasters as in Bahia!” an opposition senator, Randolfe Rodrigues, said on Twitter. “Yes! Unaware of all this, he thought he deserved a break as a big joke to the Brazilian people.”
The flood may also delay Brazil’s response to the epidemic. Bahia’s governor, Mr Costa, said several cities in his state had lost all their supplies of medicines and vaccines against Covid-19.
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