PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil: Around 70,000 people have been forced from their homes, and more than a million households lack potable water due to catastrophic flooding in southern part of Brazil, said the country’s Civil Defence on Saturday.
The statistics come as authorities in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul are scrambling to rescue people in danger.
Deadly floods, mudslides and torrential storms in southern Brazil with the capital Porto Alegre, were hit hard by the rain, the country’s civil defence agency said, adding that raging floods had left 57 dead and 74 injured. Another 67 were also missing.
Rapidly rising water levels in the state of Rio Grande do Sul strained dams and especially threatened the economically important Porto Alegre, a city of 1.4 million people.
The Guaiba River, which flows through the city, is at an all-time high of 5.04 meters (16.5 ft), well above the 4.76 meters that had been on record since the devastating floods of 1941.
Authorities scrambled to evacuate flooded neighborhoods as residents struggled to find their way to safety in chaotic conditions.
In addition to the 69,200 residents who were forced to leave their homes, the civil defence also said that more than a million people had no access to drinking water due to the flooding, describing the damage as incalculable.
Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite said his state – typically one of Brazil’s most prosperous – would need a “Marshall Plan” of major investment to rebuild after the disaster.
Long queues formed in many places as people tried to board buses, despite bus services to and from the city center being cancelled.
Porto Alegre International Airport suspended all flights indefinitely on Friday.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva released a video of a helicopter dropping a soldier onto a house where he used a brick to punch a hole in the roof and rescued the child wrapped in a blanket.
In the northern suburb of Porto Alegre, 61-year-old Jose Augusto Moraes looked shaken after fast-rising floodwaters engulfed his home and he had to call the fire department to rescue a trapped child.
South America’s largest country has recently experienced a series of extreme weather events, including a cyclone in September that claimed at least 31 lives.
