Porto Alegre: Groups rushed to provide humanitarian aid on Tuesday to flood-hit Porto Alegre and other municipalities in southern Brazil, where observers warned of more rain.
The worst natural disaster to hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul has left at least 90 dead, 362 injured and 131 still missing.
Nearly 400 municipalities, including the state capital Porto Alegre, were hit and more than 156,000 people were forced to flee their homes after days of rain turned roads into rivers.
Porto Alegre is home to about 1.4 million people, and the larger metropolitan area doubles that number.
“The most important need is (drinking) water” for tens of thousands of people in Grande do Sul whose roads, bridges have collapsed and floods are impassable, civil defense official Sabrina Ribas said.
Airlifters are flying around delivering water and food to the communities most in need, while work to restore access to the road continues.
In the municipality of Alvorada, east of Porto Alegre, workers use buckets and plastic bottles to collect drinking water from the few taps that are still in use.
Most stores have run out of bottled water.
“It’s horrible. We have children,” said 27-year-old Gabriela Almeida, who stood in line to carry her one-year-old son in front of the crowd.
Good people and businesses do what they can to help.
Alvorada resident Benildo Carvalho, 48, was one of them – he was filling his neighbor’s bottle with a hose when a group of people started forming outside his house.
“It’s a matter of solidarity,” he told AFP. “You can’t deny the water people.”
According to the municipality, only two of the six water treatment plants in Porto Alegre are operational, and hospitals and shelters are supplied by tankers.
The Brazilian Navy said Wednesday it would send the Atlantique, Latin America’s largest ship, to the Rio Grande do Sula along with two mobile water treatment plants.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday that more emergency funds would be released and that “there will be no shortage of funds to meet the needs of Rio Grande do Sul.”
About 15,000 soldiers, firefighters, police and volunteers are working hard on planes and boats, even in mid-air, to rescue those trapped and get medical help.
Neighbors Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina sent rescue equipment and experts.
Celebrities also play their part. Football player Neymar sent a plane with donations and said on Instagram that he “prays that everything will be back to normal”.
As the disaster shows no signs of abating, weather forecasts suggest it could get worse.
The Guaiba River, which runs through the country’s Porto Alegre, remained at historically high levels on Tuesday, and officials said five dams were at risk of bursting.
The floods “changed the map of the capital” in Porto Alegre, according to the weather agency MetSul.
Lula warned that the country “will have to import rice and beans” if the harvest is delayed by floods in this deep agricultural region.
At the same time, police said there were reports of looting of evacuated homes, and some residents fled to shelters for fear of such an attack.
