The balance sheet of the torrential rains in the state of Pernambouc, still provisional, reports 93 dead, 26 missing and 6,170 homeless. Urbanist choices destructive of the environment are implicated.
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The south of the State of Bahia in December 2021, the Sao Paulo region in January 2022, the city of Petropolis in the State of Rio de Janeiro in February and now the State of Pernambouc: Brazil seems to live A black series of tragedies caused by the rain. As of Wednesday, May 25, the State of Pernambouc, where the former president Lula was born, in the northeast of Brazil, experienced very strong precipitation. On Saturday, he fell into the state capital, Recife, 236 millimeters of rain, which is equivalent to more than 70 % of forecasts for the whole month of May (328.9 millimeters), according to the meteorology services .
The damage is considerable throughout the metropolitan region of Recife, where more than 4 million inhabitants live: landslides have swept away dozens of houses built on the hillside, making many victims. But the three main rivers that came out of their beds also destroyed dwellings built on the banks, and flooded the majority of the 14 municipalities on the periphery of Recife. “In some districts, water has really taken everything away and people have nothing. We have found distraught residents, without shoes, alone in the mud. Social and economic losses are immense,” explains Victoria Alvares, who Participates, alongside the homeless movement, in food distributions. Monday, the rains caused new damage in the state of Alagoas, south of Pernambouc. The toll, still provisional, reports 93 dead, 26 missing and 6,170 people who lost their home and are in the shelters open by the town hall.
“complicated geography”
“Recife has a particular and complicated geography, between, on the one hand, hills sometimes very steep and, on the other, an area of estuaries where the capital and beberibe rivers are throwing up. In recent decades, the Poor population was far from the plains and won the hills, when these are risk areas, where there are the greatest number of deaths each time, “explains Osvaldo Girao, professor of geography of geography The Federal University of Pernambouc. Recife has already experienced similar disasters, in particular in 1975, with more than 103 victims – 80 % of the area of the city had found itself underwater. Then again in 1986 and again in 2010.
At the origin of these disasters, the same meteorological phenomenon: atmospheric disturbances which are formed at that time of the year and which move from Africa to the Atlantic coast of Brazil. “It is a natural dynamic of the climate, which is not particularly amplified by climate change according to our surveys. On the other hand, the destruction of the environment, the wild urbanization and the increase in the population does not allow more to absorb the impact of the climate. In summary, the problem is not in the sky, but on the surface of the earth, “said climatologist Carlos Jardim, professor at the Institute of Geosciences of the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
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