Brazil’s Civil Protection reported that 281 municipalities were affected by the rains, 8,296 people were left homeless and 74 were injured. The total number of people affected is more than 422 thousand, according to the newspaper “Folha de São Paulo”.
Furthermore, there are 350,000 homes without electricity and 441,120 customers without running water, a number that has doubled in the last few hours. There are also 63 municipalities without telephone and Internet services.
The authorities suspended classes in 2338 public schools, with a total of 200 million students.
In the early hours of yesterday [sexta-feira]the Guaíba River, in Porto Alegre, reached 4.23 meters, the highest level since 1941.
In the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre and in the south of the state of Santa Catarina “the probability of flooding is very high”, say the authorities.
As for landslides due to rain, the risk is “very high” in Porto Alegre, in the northeast of Rio Grande do Sul and in the south of Santa Catarina.
The governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, explained that the security forces rescued a total of eight thousand people, in a post on his account on the social network X.
“More than eight thousand people have already been rescued by land and air, in the most diverse circumstances of this dramatic moment we are experiencing”, added the governor, making “an appeal to all those in risk zones to leave these places and take refuge in a safe place.”
In the same statement, the governor assured that “more than two thousand men and women from the State security forces and at least another thousand from the Armed Forces” were deployed to the field, who are “working tirelessly on rescues”.
The central region of Porto Alegre is protected by a system of dikes and floodgates built after heavy rains that occurred eight decades ago.
However, several cities, such as Barra do Ribeiro, Eldorado do Sul and Guaíba, are more unprotected.
