Rio Grande do Sul’s tragedy is not the work of chance, it has been sown over time – by Carlos Wagner

In the coverage of the climate disaster that detonated Porto Alegre and 334 other of the 496 municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul, I missed a character. The old people who live in the Historic Center of the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. Many of them were there when, in 1941, Guaíba rose 4m76cm.

For 83 years this was the biggest flood in the city. It lost its place at the weekend, when the waters rose 5m31cm, ignoring the famous Mauá Wall and other flood containment devices that were spread along 66 kilometers to prevent further flooding.

It didn’t help. The muddy waters of the lake passed over everything and spread damage throughout several neighborhoods, putting the flood of 41 to shame, as the young reporters say. The numbers change several times a day, but on Tuesday morning (7) the catastrophe account indicated 85 dead and 134 missing.

As I said in the post published over the weekend, New climate normal establishes the routine of tragedy in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the local, national and international press is providing good, data-rich daily coverage of the tragedy. The President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), accompanied by ministers and the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, and of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, returned to the State on Sunday (5) to meet with Governor Eduardo Milk (PSDB). He had been here on Friday (03). Let’s talk about the old people, starting with the residents of the Historic Center of Porto Alegre.

In the 40s, the Historic Center was where the city’s wealthy class lived and lived. Mainly traders, owners of rural farms and industrialists. There are still elegant buildings from that time there. I obtained this information for a report I did in the 90s. At the time, it caught my attention that many of the pioneer residents continued to live there because their children grew up and left home and they stayed.

I remember visiting huge apartments, furnished with furniture from the 40s and 50s, where old couples lived. The reason for the article was because many of them died and the neighbors only noticed when the corpse started to smell bad. I don’t know how many of these people are still alive. But I believe there may still be some of them there.

On Saturday night, I called a friend who lives in one of these buildings in the Historic Center and asked him about his neighbor, a very elderly man. He told me: “His son came to take a shower because there was no water in his house.” I have some acquaintances who I occasionally call to chat. It’s a good conversation.

There is another interesting character who lives on the other bank of the Guaíba, on the islands, the main one being Ilha da Pintada. They are fishermen, descendants of people who have lived in the region for many generations. Their way of life, starting with the houses that are built high above the ground, stilt style, is adapted to the Guaíba flood cycles.

Nowadays, the majority of the islands’ population was born and raised in other regions of the state. And he settled on the islands for economic reasons. Most make a living from recycling garbage. And due to the lack of knowledge about rivers, they become vulnerable to floods.

There is one more interesting story that has to do with what is currently happening in Rio Grande do Sul. In the 70s, 80s and part of the 90s, due to good international soybean prices, crops spread to all corners of the country. State. The way the gaucho prepared the plantation resulted in the erosion of hundreds of thousands of tons of soil into the rivers. This land has altered the course of several rivers and made them shallower, which means that at times of flood waters reach places they never did before. I remember doing several reports on erosion.

In the Planalto Médio, region of the city of Passo Fundo, the color of the water in the rivers was red clay. What I’m saying, citing the reports I did, is that the mega tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul didn’t start today. It has been sown for several decades. For example: the misuse of soil in crops, real estate speculation that landfilled and occupied areas that previously belonged to Guaíba and the incorrect handling of urban waste.

Of course, we journalists cannot, in each article, write a thesis to explain to the reader the reasons why things happen. But we need to inform you that they do not grow from the ground. Before, they are sown and then grow and become a problem.

I always say in my lectures to students and newsroom professionals across Brazil that I do not defend the belief that old age brings wisdom, much less that youth makes us intrepid innovators. I believe in persistence and work.

Having said that, I remember that we cannot throw a story the size of what is happening to the Gauchos in the reader’s face and simply say that he was born, raised and became an adult due to the lack of environmental education of several generations. It also has to do with the lack of punishment for those people who committed environmental crimes. There is a huge list of environmental crimes committed in Rio Grande do Sul without punishment. I wrote a lot of articles on the subject.

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The text above, reproduced with permission from the author, was originally published on the blog “Histórias Mal Contadas”, by the journalistCarlos Wagner

. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Carlos Wagner