(Roca Sales) At least six people have died due to heavy rains that have hit southern Brazil since the start of the week and which led to floods and landslides, authorities confirmed on Sunday.
Three people died in Rio Grande do Sul, including two in the collapse of their house in Gramado, a tourist town 100 km from Porto Alegre.
“Unfortunately, the three deaths already confirmed. Lots of destruction and thousands of people housed in gymnasiums in the affected municipalities,” Rio Grande do Sul Vice Governor Gabriel Souza said on X.
At least 31,000 people were affected by the rainfall in Rio Grande do Sul and more than 1,600 had to be evacuated from their homes.
Several localities, including Roca Sales, were affected by the overflowing of the Taquari river.
Dozens of volunteers tried to clean the city’s streets on Sunday, some of which were completely covered by the brown waters of the Taquari, or with mud and littered with trees, noted an AFP journalist.
The other three deaths, due to a storm, were confirmed in the state of Santa Catarina, northern Rio Grande do Sul: two women in the town of Taio on Thursday and a man on Friday in Palmitos. A fourth person is missing.
Brazil’s southern region has faced extreme weather events in recent months, including torrential rains and a devastating cyclone that killed more than 50 people in September. According to experts, these phenomena, due to climate change, tend to repeat themselves.
The governor of Santa Catarina declared a state of emergency in 64 municipalities due to heavy rains that began on Tuesday.
In the four cities most affected by precipitation in this state, it rained in three days more than twice as much as normal for the month of November.
During the week, the southeast, center-west and part of the north of the country were hit by an extreme heatwave.