Three weeks after one of Brazil’s worst-ever floods hit its southernmost state, killing 155 people and forcing 540,000 from their homes, experts have warned that water levels will take at least another two weeks to drop.
The death toll across Rio Grande do Sul is still increasing daily, and more than 77,000 displaced people remain in public shelters, prompting the state government to announce plans to build four temporary “tent cities” to accommodate them.
My family lives in the neighboring state, Santa Catarina. The whole country is pretty shocked by this. There were also floods here in Germany, in Italy and i read about some more happening around the same time.
Did all the deforestation they’ve done contribute to this problem?
in part yes, because it contributed to global warming. we are almost in winter and most of the country has summer temps. that mass of hot air encounters cold masses from the antarctic, causing heavy rain.
Rain like this is atypical because it shouldn’t be this hot in may
i forgot for a second that the winters and summers get flipped in the southern hemisphere
I feel like I read news about these floods every few years.
The problem is that a lot of these homes are cheap/affordable because they are built in flood zones.
In a lot of cases that’s true, but this flood is much larger than the usual flood zones that flood every few years. They got 15 feet of rain in a day, and have gotten a lot of rain since then. That’s enough water to just form a new lake.