South Brazil braces for the worst as ”oods, landslips push death toll to 39

The death toll from “oods and mudslides triggered by torrential storms in southern Brazil climbed to 39 on Friday, o‡cials said, as they warned of worse to come.

As the rain kept beating down, rescuers in boats and planes searched for scores of people reported missing among the ruins of collapsed homes, bridges and roads.

Rising water levels in the state of Rio Grande do Sul were straining dams and threatening the metropolis of Porto Alegre with “unprecedented” “ooding, authorities warned.

“Forget everything you have seen, it’s going to be much worse in the metropolitan region,” Governor Eduardo Leite said on Friday as the streets of the state capital, with a population of some 1.5 million, started “ooding after days of heavy downpours in the region.

The state’s civil defence department said at least 265 municipalities had suffered storm damage in Rio Grande do Sul since Monday, injuring 74 people and displacing more than 24,000.

At least 68 people were missing, and more than 3,50,000 have experienced some form of property damage.

And there was no end in sight, with o‡cials reporting an “emergency situation, presenting a risk of collapse” at four dams in the state.

‘Disastrous cocktail’

The level of the State’s main Guiaba river, meanwhile, was estimated to have risen 4.2 - 4.6m, but could not be measured as the gauges have washed away, the Mayor of Porto

Alegre said.

Porto Alegre’s worst recorded “ood was in 1941, when the river reached a level of 4.71 m.

Elsewhere in the State, several cities and towns have been completely cut o— from the world in what Governor Leite described as “the worst disaster in the history” of Rio Grande do Sul.

Many communities have been left without access to drinking water, telephone or Internet services. Tens of thousands have no electricity.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the region on Thursday, vowing “there will be no lack of human or material resources” in responding to the disaster, which he blamed on climate change.

Climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino said the devastating storms were the result of a “disastrous cocktail” of global warming and the El Nino phenomenon.

Muddled lot: The vehicles in Encantado in Brazil’s in Rio Grande do Sul State that were a…ected by the floods on Friday.