Volunteer helps rescue people in areas hit by floods in Porto Alegre, RSAFP
Published 05/05/2024 15:52
From the flooded streets or from the air, the images are devastating: houses with barely visible roofs, people who have lost everything and the center of Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul, completely flooded.
More than 3,000 soldiers, firefighters and brigade members work to rescue isolated people, in many cases without basic supplies such as water or electricity. They are also working to search for the missing, of which there are already 103, according to Civil Defense.
Sunday “will be a decisive day for rescues”, highlighted the Minister of Communication, Paulo Pimenta.
“It’s a war scenario. Treatment will also have to be given after the war,” said the state governor, Eduardo Leite, together with the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as well as several ministers.
The president traveled to the state this Sunday for the second time this week to coordinate actions to mitigate a tragedy that continues to grow.
The federal government will “make all necessary resources available” for reconstruction, promised Lula, one day after Leite requested a “Marshall plan” for the state of 11 million inhabitants.
Donations and field hospitals
Eduardo Bittencourt, a 36-year-old trader, told in Porto Alegre how he organized himself with a group of volunteers to rescue people trapped in their homes with pickup trucks.
“Things are very complicated, we are helping whoever we can help, but it is the law of nature,” he told AFP.
Army personnel are working to create field hospitals, because hundreds of patients had to be removed from medical care centers.
From schools to prisons, all types of infrastructure have been affected.
The water supply is interrupted in 70% of Porto Alegre – with almost 1.4 million inhabitants – and its metropolitan region, which has entire cities submerged, such as Canoas, Guaíba and Eldorado.
In the streets of Guaíba, today transformed into rivers, hundreds of speedboats, inflatable boats and jet skis come and go non-stop rescuing trapped, wet residents without electricity.
And the waters advance uncontrollably towards the metropolis.
According to City Hall, the level of the Guaíba River located in the city was 5.30 meters, above the record of 4.76 meters recorded during the historic floods of 1941.
Kayaking and swimming
“My husband put my two daughters in a kayak and paddled with a ‘tacuara’. My son and I swam to the end of the street and started walking in water up to our necks,” she told AFP in a WhatsApp message.
But on Friday history repeated itself. “We were rescued by a boat of friends.” Since then, she has been with her family in a shelter. “We lost everything we had.”
Like her, almost 17 thousand people were housed in shelters.
The exceptional situation leaves Porto Alegre practically under siege.
The Highway Police told AFP that access from the south is cut off for around 15 km, while access to the city is still possible from the north.
Porto Alegre international airport, whose runway is underwater, is closed indefinitely.
Pope’s message
“The Lord has the deceased in his heart, he comforts their families and those who had to leave their homes,” he said in front of St. Peter’s Square.
It was the “disastrous cocktail” of climate change and the meteorological phenomenon El Niño that favored the devastating rains that hit southern Brazil and other extreme events, climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino told AFP.
Porto Alegre, a city founded by Portuguese immigrants in 1772 and located in the middle of a huge river basin, developed under the influence of its port, fundamental to the growth of Brazil, reports the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) on its website. Today that blessing turned into misfortune.
The province of Rio Grande do Sul warned of the danger of more landslides or road collapses, which have already left numerous routes cut across the state and also in neighboring Santa Catarina.
Faced with the public calamity situation faced in the State, the government of Rio Grande do Sul reactivated the donation channel for the “SOS Rio Grande do Sul” account to receive donations via Pix that will be donated to the victims.
The Government of Rio Grande do Sul and Civil Defense announced two ways to receive donations:
-State Civil Defense Logistics Center
-Address: Avenida Joaquim Porto Villanova, 101, neighborhood
Jardim Carvalho, in Porto Alegre
-Telephone: (51) 3210 4255
Pix for the SOS Rio Grande do Sul account
-Key – CNPJ: 92.958.800/0001-38
-State Bank of Rio Grande do Sul
Attention: when carrying out the operation, it is necessary to confirm that the name of the account that appears is “SOS Rio Grande do Sul” and that the bank is Banrisul.
The management and supervision of resources will be the responsibility of a Management Committee, chaired by the Civil House Secretariat and composed of representatives from government bodies and social entities. The resources will be fully used for humanitarian support for flood victims and for the reconstruction of the cities’ infrastructure.
