Brazilians queue for precious water as flood damage intensifies

Nearly 400 municipalities have been hit by devastating floods in southern Brazil, and more than 156,000 people have been forced to leave their homes – Copyright POOL/AFP Aurelien Morissard

Mauricio RABUFFETTI

Humanitarian aid arrived Tuesday in Porto Alegre and other flood-ravaged municipalities of southern Brazil, where queues formed for drinking water as forecasters warned of more downpours.

The worst natural calamity ever to hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul has claimed at least 90 lives, with 362 people reported injured and 131 still missing, according to the civil defense force that handles disaster relief.

Nearly 400 municipalities in total have been hit, including state capital Porto Alegre, and more than 156,000 people have been forced to leave their homes as streets were transformed into rivers after days of rain in unprecedented amounts.

Porto Alegre is home to some 1.4 million people and the larger metropolitan area more than double that.

For tens of thousands of people left stranded amid impassable roads, collapsed bridges and flooded homes in Rio Grande do Sul, “the most urgent demand is (drinking) water,” said civil defense official Sabrina Ribas.

Helicopters were flying two and fro delivering water and food to communities most in need, while work continued on restoring road access.

In the municipality of Alvorada, west of Porto Alegre, there were queues of people with buckets and plastic bottles, collecting drinking water from the few municipal taps still working.

Most shops have run out of bottled water.

“This is horrible. We have children,” said 27-year-old Gabriela Almeida, queuing at a public tap with a one-year-old in her arms.

Individuals and businesses with wells were doing what they could to help.

Alvorada resident Benildo Carvalho, 48, was one of them — filling neighbors’ bottles with a hose as a line of people started to form outside his house.

“It’s a matter of solidarity,” he told AFP. “You cannot deny people water.”

Only one of Porto Alegre’s six water treatment plants was functioning, the mayor’s office said, and hospitals and shelters were being supplied by tankers.

– ‘Changed the map’ –

President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva said more emergency funds would be freed up Tuesday, vowing there would be “no lack of resources to meet the needs of Rio Grande do Sul.”

Some 15,000 soldiers, firefighters, police and volunteers were hard at work in planes and boats, even jet skis, to rescue those who are trapped and bring aid where they can.

Brazil’s neighbors Uruguay and Argentina have sent rescue equipment and trained personnel. 

As the calamity showed no signs of abating, weather forecasts suggested it could still get worse.

The Inmet meteorological institute warned of possible storms in the south of Rio Grande do Sul until Wednesday, followed by rainfall in the center and north it said would imperil the rescue effort.

The state’s Guaiba River, which runs through Porto Alegre, remained at historic levels Tuesday.

According to weather agency MetSul, the flooding has “changed the map of the metropolitan region” of Porto Alegre.

Police, meanwhile, said there have been reports of evacuated homes being looted and some residents, afraid of such intrusions, were refusing to move to shelters.