ROCA SALES, Brazil: Brazil is bracing for new storms just days after a devastating cyclone killed at least fourty-one people in the country’s south, officials said on Thursday.
25 people remain missing after an extratropical cyclone this week barraged the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which is also the target of the new weather system, according to AFP.
Late Thursday, a cold front will advance along the border with Uruguay and will incease instabilities in the southern regions of the state, expanding to northern parts between Thursday night and early Friday, the state government said in a statement citing a meteorologist.
Flooding from the earlier storm submerged many areas in Rio Grande do Sol, forcing many citizens to climb onto roofs while awaiting rescue.
Over 10,500 people were forced to leave their homes in eighty-three municipalities hit by the cyclone.
At least 1000 rescuers and a dozen helicopters were involved in rescue operations that continued Thursday, complicated by the destruction of two bridges and sixteen roads fully or partially blocked, officials said.
In Roca Sales, another hard-hit town, residents with shovels and picks were struggling to recover whatever possessions they could from destroyed homes.
Francis Lacerda, a researcher at the Pernambuco State Agronomy Institute’s Climate Change Laboratory, said that Brazil is not used to cyclones, but it is becoming “more and more frequent” for them to make landfall.
Causes of deadly disasters in Brazil
Experts say that unchecked urbanization and irregular housing constructed on hillsides are also making weather disasters deadlier in the country.
In June, another cyclone killed thirteen people in Rio Grande do Sul and forced thousands of people to abondon their homes.
And in February, sixty-five people died in landslides caused by record flooding in the southeastern resort town of Sao Sebastiao, on the coast of Sao Paulo state.
An estimated 9.5 million of the country’s 203 million people live in areas at high risk of flooding or landslides.
