Brazil flooding death toll rises to 90 as more than 155,000 people displaced
The death toll from what authorities call the worst climate disaster ever to strike southern Brazil has risen to 90, after ferocious rain flooded huge stretches of Rio Grande do Sul state, displacing more than 155,000 people and forcing the closure of the main airport in the country’s fifth biggest city. Photographs of the Porto Alegre airport, one of Brazil’s busiest, showed its main terminal had been completely inundated and a cargo plane parked in an expanse of water next to a pair of semi-submerged boarding stairs. At least 361 people have been injured and 131 are missing as a result of what state governor Eduaro Leite called his state’s “biggest ever climate catastrophe”. More than 48,000 people are living in dozens of shelters. “The state is facing a war-like situation,” Leite told reporters on Sunday as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva flew to the region to oversee rescue efforts. “This is one of those events that will go down in history,” added Leite, who has declared a state of emergency in 397 of his state’s 497 towns and cities. One of the worst-affected cities is the state capital, Porto Alegre, which sits along the Guaíba river. The waterway hit a record level of 5.33 metres (17.5ft) on Sunday morning – even higher than during historic 1941 floods when it rained for more than 20 days straight. “Porto Alegre has been devastated, leaving virtually the whole city without its supply of water, electricity and food,” the newspaper O Globo reported on Tuesday, describing “a situation of unprecedented sorrow” in the flooded city of 1.4 million inhabitants. Follow link for full story...