The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state rose to 143, the local civil defence government body said on Sunday, up from 136 in the previous day, while another 125 people remain unaccounted for.
On Saturday evening the government an-nounced around 12.1 billion reais ($2.34 billion) in emergency spending to deal with the crisis that has displaced more than 537,000 people in the state, out of a population of around 10.9 million.
With this new money, more than 60 billion reais in federal funds have already been made available to the state, said the federal government in a statement on Saturday.
More rain is expected for Sunday, filling rivers that were already full or overflowing, weather forecaster Metsul said on Saturday evening.
The state is at a geographical meeting point be-tween tropical and polar atmospheres, which has created a weather pattern with periods of intense rains or drought.
Local scientists believe the pattern has been intensifying due to climate change. Storms and floods battering the South American country’s southernmost state have also left around 537,000 displaced, according to the local civil defence body, a significant increase over the 340,000 reported a day earlier.
About 446 urban centres have been impacted, affecting the lives of more than 2.1 million people in a state whose population is about 10.9 million.
Weather forecaster Metsul has reported that after a short respite, rains coming down over the state on Friday have begun to fill rivers in what it called a “worrying” situation.
“Accumulated precipitation is occurring in the worst possible region given the current flood sce-nario, along the basins and in the sources of the main rivers that are still full,” said the meteorological service in a public statement.
The state is at a geographical meeting point be-tween tropical and polar atmospheres, which has created a weather pattern with periods of intense rains or drought. Local scientists believe the pattern has been intensifying due to climate change.—INP
