Southern Brazil Floods: Death Toll Hits 143, Rivers Rise Again as Rain Returns

0:00

/1861

1×

Facts

• Authorities in Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, on Sunday raised the official death toll from the worst natural calamity to ever hit the state to at least 145, with 132 people reportedly missing and 619K displaced.¹
• According to national and state authorities, further flooding is very likely in most of the state as nearly all of its major — and already overflowing — rivers rose again over the weekend due to fresh heavy rains.²
• On Saturday, Brazil's federal government announced some $2.34B in emergency spending to deal with the crisis. The state affected is home to around 10.9M people.³
• Given that Rio Grande do Sul has the fourth-largest share of Brazil's GDP, preliminary estimates suggest that the adverse impact of floods on the national economy may range between 0.2% and 0.3% this year⁴
• The state's capital, Porto Alegre, has had much of its downtown submerged, as the Guaíba River swelled to around 5 meters (16 ft) — 2 meters (6 ft) over its flood limit. Several medical centers are without power, and the city's airport has been closed until May 30.⁵
• Meteorologists in Brazil have partially blamed El Niño for the wet weather, as the warming waters of the Pacific Ocean help block cold fronts and concentrate areas of instability over the state of Rio Grande do Sul.⁶

Sources: ¹NDTV.com, ²France 24, ³Reuters, ⁴Valorinternational, ⁵Washington Post and ⁶FOX Weather.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by The Conversation. Increasingly, severe rainstorms and flooding are being linked to global warming and climate change. Warmer weather allows air to retain more water vapor, which is why we must implement policies to cool the global temperature, to save lives and avoid billions of dollars in damage.
• Narrative B, as provided by FT. It's easy to dismiss extreme weather events as a consequence of climate change, but in reality, they're usually influenced by a myriad of factors. More research is needed before we can establish any direct causal link between the two.

Predictions