The dam cracked at dawn and led to chaos. Unstoppable, the waters of the Gravataí River devastated everything in its path, block by block, until it completely flooded the Sarandí neighborhood, in the northern part of the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. When people woke up on Saturday the 4th, many of them had water up to their ankles. And Cristiane Porto did not have the strength to take her husband and her son out of her house alone.
“It was very fast. We were sleeping and when we saw, we were in that confusion,” says Porto, 49, with his voice broken by pulmonary arrhythmia. Her husband, 74, suffers from Parkinson’s and in recent years has suffered two strokes that left him almost completely paralyzed. It was a phone call from her pastor in the middle of the night that alerted her to the misfortune that was coming: her house was flooding along with the entire neighborhood, she had to get out of there as soon as possible.
With Civil Defense officials overwhelmed, two volunteers were sent by their Church to try to get the family out, but the water was rising quickly and they were unable to enter. A small pond of mud, street dirt, and river water had formed in the living room. Their neighbors joined the rescue and pulled them out, putting them in the back of a pickup truck. “We came out with water up to our waists,” says Porto.
That morning, thousands of people from the neighborhoods of the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, which has been suffering from devastating floods since the beginning of the month, had to be evacuated. The Porto family was taken to the Adventist Church of Sarandí, but they soon had to leave there as well, because the water was approaching at an accelerated pace. The dam cracked in three places. The water reached six meters. There was no salvation in the neighborhood.
In the last two weeks, the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul has experienced its worst climate catastrophe, after torrential rains followed by unprecedented floods have so far left 147 dead, 127 missing and 806 injured in at least 447 municipalities affected — numbers that authorities believe could increase when the water recedes. More than 500,000 people had to leave their homes, and many do not know if they will be able to return.
In Porto Alegre, Brazil’s fifth largest city and state capital, the Guaíba River — which surrounds part of the municipality — remains overflowing and keeps many neighborhoods under water. After receding a little, the waters have risen again due to the heavy rains this weekend and the local Civil Defense fears that the river will exceed the record reached during this crisis, which broke that of 1941.
Destroyed roads, fallen bridges and completely submerged streets have blocked entrances to hundreds of cities, making it more difficult to transport humanitarian aid. Volunteers and Civil Defense officials carry out rescues in boats, improvised vehicles, jetskis and helicopters. While neighbors, non-profit organizations and municipal governments welcome refugees in shelters: almost 80,000 people.
In a gym at the Serviço Social do Comércio (Sesc), in Porto Alegre, the indoor soccer field is now filled with rows of mattresses, sheets, and hanging towels. 250 people are taking refuge there, including the Porto family.
“The flood was very bad,” says Porto sadly, “the house was flooded up to the roof, we lost everything.” It hurts him so much to be a victim of this catastrophe to think that the tragedy could have been avoided. She wonders why the rulers didn’t build better systems to contain the river. “They don’t do it because they don’t want to, because they have plenty of money for that.” “If an institution like this had not welcomed us, what would become of us?” she asks out loud.
The National Center for Monitoring and Alert of Natural Disasters (Cemadem) made public a document that warned about the rains and the risk of urban areas being flooded in Rio Grande do Sul a week before the events that left thousands homeless. On May 6, when the federal government declared a state of calamity in the southernmost state of the country, this organization issued a technical note reporting that, a year earlier, it was known that Porto Alegre’s infrastructure was too weak to confront catastrophes related to climate change.
The consensus of the scientific community is that what has been invested to confront climate disasters in this state has not been enough. Since his first year in office, center-right Governor Eduardo Leite has modified nearly 480 environmental regulations. The State has suffered four floods in one year.
Joarés Carvalho Alves, 73, and his wife Rita, 66, were rescued by a boat on May 1 in their Porto Alegre neighborhood, called Navegantes. “The rain came suddenly. We didn’t have time to take out almost anything, to bring up the furniture. [a lugares altos]. We left with only clothes and documents.”
The pensioners had a small piece of land and a house behind Joarés’ brother’s store. Now the couple is not sure what awaits them, but they want to return home. “The house was flooded to the top. “We have nothing,” he says. Rita does not look up, and her tears flow little by little as her husband tells her story.
“This never happened to us. Only at the time when I was not even born, in 1941, my mother told me that there was a great flood. But this one was worse, it flooded everything, the whole city,” she says.
They are staying in the same gym as the Portos while they wait for their son, rescued in another place and sent to another shelter, who was rescued in another location and sent to the city shelter, to visit them this week. “When we return we will see what the damage was, what we can take advantage of and what we cannot. Now it remains to start again, start from scratch. Raise your head and work,” says Carvalho Alves.
Disastrous weather events have followed Asnel and Marthe Vertismat like the plague. In 2010, a strong earthquake in her native Haiti killed more than 250,000 people and left more than a million homeless. The misery and instability that followed ended up suffocating the nation, and the couple, aged 41 and 37, decided to leave Saint Michel de L’ Atalaye and emigrate to Brazil in 2016 to seek a better life.
The house they shared with their children, Lesly and Obed, 8 years old, other migrants and several Brazilians was flooded. They were only able to rescue their documents. “We have a company there, we sew. Now everything is under water,” laments Asnel Vertismat.
Mauricio Martins, a doctor who goes to the shelter every day to care for those sheltered as volunteers, says that the situation that many are experiencing is very dramatic. “They arrive very shocked. Others arrive relieved,” he says. “Many people suffered from panic attacks, psychological stress. There were people worried because they had relatives who didn’t know where they were.”
At the shelter, they are treated by doctors and psychologists. And thanks to donations, everyone has the basics.
Alejandro and Rosani Ortiz, 27, also migrated to Brazil along with their three children to escape the acute economic crisis facing their country, Venezuela. His story, like that of many Venezuelans abroad, is one of separation, detachment and displacement. They arrived in Brazil eight months ago following in the footsteps of her mother, who settled here six years ago. After entering through the land border, they were reunited with the children’s grandmother in Porto Alegre. Since then, the couple tried to find work and prosper. Until the flood came.
Since they live in the same building, they gathered everyone’s things in the highest apartment. “Our hopes were that it would flood [sólo] down and we could stay up. But in view of the news, that the water was rising and that we had to leave, we asked for a rescue.” Now they wait for the water to subside so they can return to their home. Meanwhile, they say they are grateful to be safe
“It hurts to see the situation” of those affected, says Anielle, 46, who volunteers at the shelter along with her daughter Sofía, 13. “Today, anyone who is in a dry and safe place is very lucky, and the least we can do is It is to help.”
Follow all the information from El PAÍS América in Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter.
.
.
_
