Devastating and ongoing floods in southern Brazil is forcing some of the half million displaced residents to consider uprooting their lives from inundated towns to rebuild on higher ground.
Researchers estimate nearly 3,800 square km were flooded just in the area around Porto Alegre. That is where four rivers converge to form the Guaiba River. An area bigger than the urban footprint of the DC metro area, which includes 10 counties in two adjacent states. It is an area 5 times larger than the capital region of Finland, Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo and Kauniainen combined.
With hundreds of thousands of families fleeing the Brazil floods, the disaster – which has killed at least 147 people, with 127 still missing – could touch off one of Brazil’s biggest cases of climate migration in recent history.
Musk wrote earlier in X that Starlink will provide the emergency responders with 1000 free terminals. He laos promised to provide a free internet access to help in emergency communications.
Amid Brazil floods, low income people has nowhere to go
“I have no idea where I’m going, but it will be somewhere far from the river. Somewhere our lives will not be at risk,” Baldasso said as he removed another cart of mud from inside the house.
Mayor Mateus Trojan said many of Muçum’s 5,000 residents will have to relocate. His office is planning to rebuild 40% of the town elsewhere.
Baldasso had already saved his family in September by climbing onto the roof of their two-story house. They were rescued by the fire brigade in the middle of the night from yet another floods in Brazil.
During that flood, just a few blocks away, Maria Marlene Venancio’s house was swept away and she lost everything. This month, the rented house she had moved to was flooded 1.5 meters (5 ft) deep. She fears it is time to leave Muçum.
“I think the town will become a river one day, and it will be difficult for us to live here. People with money are all leaving,” she said.
