the death toll from bad weather rises to 100

This new report was announced as the weather situation is expected to deteriorate on Friday, raising fears of further rain in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The toll of the torrential rains which hit the south of Brazil increased further on Wednesday May 8. According to Civil Defense, 100 people have died and 128 are missing in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, hit at the beginning of the month by exceptionally violent bad weather. A previous report reported 95 dead and 131 missing.

“The figures continue to rise but unfortunately they remain highly imprecise because we are still in an emergency situation”, declared the governor of the state, Eduardo Leite, at a press conference on Wednesday. A speech during which he warned against the risk of “further heavy rains from Friday (…) which could cause further flooding in already heavily affected areas”.

During these bad weather, pMore than 150,000 people had to leave their homes, 47,000 people found refuge in accommodation centers and more than a million homes found themselves without water.

The worst climatic disaster in the region

The bad weather that hit the region has already been described as the worst climatic disaster in the history of this agricultural state. On the social networka network of environmental associations from Brazilian civil society, the Climate Observatory, criticized Wednesday “inaction and setbacks on environmental legislation”accused of having “made Rio Grande do Sul more vulnerable to extreme events”.

The question of adaptation is crucial in a country which has recently experienced torrential floods, droughts and heatwaves. LThe World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a UN agency, announced on Wednesday that by 2023, El Niño and man-made climate change have caused a record number of environmental disasters across the world. Latin America.

It recorded 67 episodes of meteorological, hydrological and climatic disasters in the region. Of these, 77% were linked to storms and floods, says the WMO report, which is based on data from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.