Home » today » World » Create a seo title for this news article: ELDORADO DO SUL, Brazil (AP) — More rain started coming down on Saturday in Brazil’s already flooded Rio Grande do Sul state, where many of those remaining are poor people with limited ability to move to less dangerous areas.More than 15 centimeters (nearly six inches) of rain could fall over the weekend and will probably worsen flooding, according to the Friday afternoon bulletin from Brazil’s national meteorology institute. It said there is also a high likelihood that winds will intensify and water levels rise in the Patos lagoon next to the state capital, Porto Alegre, and the surrounding area. Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo) As of Saturday afternoon, heavy rains were falling in the northern and central regions of the state, and water levels were rising.Carlos Sampaio, 62, lives in a low-income community next to soccer club Gremio’s stadium in Porto Alegre. His two-story home doubles as a sports bar. Even though the first floor is inundated, he said he won’t leave, partly out of fear of looters in his high-crime neighborhood, where police carry assault rifles as they patrol its flooded streets. But Sampaio also has nowhere else to go, he told The Associated Press. “I am analyzing how safe I am, and I know that my belongings aren’t safe at all,” Sampaio said. “As long as I can fight for what is mine, within my abilities to not leave myself exposed, I will fight.”At least 136 people have died in the floods since they began last week, and 125 more are missing, local authorities said Friday. The number of people displaced from their homes because of the torrential rains has surpassed 400,000, of whom 70,000 are sheltering in gyms, schools and other temporary locations. Gas cylinders float in flood water at a gas distribution center after heavy rains in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) “I came here on Monday — lost my apartment to the flood,” Matheus Vicari, a 32-year-old Uber driver, said inside a shelter where he is staying with his young son. “I don’t spent a lot of time here. I try to be out to think about something else.” Some residents of Rio Grande do Sul state have found sanctuary at second homes, including Alexandra Zanela, who co-owns a content agency in Porto Alegre.Zanela and her partner volunteered when the floods began, but chose to move out after frequent electricity and water cuts. She headed to the beachfront city of Capao da Canoa — so far unaffected by flooding — where her partner’s family owns a summer home.“We took a ride with my sister-in-law, took our two cats, my mother and a friend of hers and came here safely. We left the Porto Alegre chaos,” Zanela, 42, told the AP by phone. “It is very clear that those who have the privilege to leave are in a much safer position, and those living in the poorer areas of Porto Alegre have no option.” Volunteers push a wheelchair transporting a resident evacuated from an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) Weather across South America is affected by the El Niño climate phenomenon, a naturally occurring event that periodically warms surface waters in the equatorial Pacific. In Brazil, El Niño has historically caused droughts in the north and intense rainfall in the south, and this year the effects have been particularly severe. Scientists say extreme weather is happening more frequently because of climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels that emit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, and overwhelmingly agree the world needs to drastically cut the burning of coal, oil and gas to limit global warming. But there is also a need for social policy responses, said Natalie Unterstell, president of Talanoa Institute, a Rio de Janeiro-based climate policy think tank. Hens stand on the roof of a flooded home after heavy rain in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) “Providing an effective response to climate change in Brazil requires us to combat inequalities,” Unterstell said. In Brazil, the poor often live in houses built from less resilient materials such as wood and in unregulated areas more vulnerable to damage from extreme weather, such as low-lying areas or on steep hillsides.“We cannot say that the worst is over,” Rio Grande do Sul Gov. Eduardo Leite said on social media Friday. The day before, he estimated that 19 billion reais ($3.7 billion) will be needed to rebuild the state. The scale of devastation may be most comparable to Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, Sergio Vale, chief economist at MB Associates, wrote in a note Friday. Residents rest in a gymnasium converted into a shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo) Rio Grande do Sul has the sixth-highest gross domestic product per capita among Brazil’s 26 states and the federal district, according to the national statistics institute. Many of the state’s inhabitants descend from Italian and German immigrants.“In the popular imagination, the population of Rio Grande do Sul is seen as white and well-off, but this is not the reality,” said Marília Closs, a researcher at the CIPO Platform, a climate think tank. “It’s very important to dispel this fiction, because it’s constructed with a political objective” to erase Black and poor residents, she said. In Canoas, one of the hardest-hit cities in the state, Paulo Cezar Wolf’s small wooden house has been fully submerged, along with all his belongings. The truck driver, who is Black, now lives in the back of a loaned truck with six of his neighbors, who all cook, eat and sleep there. People who lost their homes to flooding live in a truck trailer in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) Wolf, 54, has considered leaving the rural region, where he has lived since childhood, but has nowhere else to go and doesn’t want to leave behind his four adult children.“It is too late for someone like me to move somewhere else,” Wolf said, wearing a donated sweatshirt as he stood on a highway.The meteorology institute predicts the arrival of a mass of cold and dry air will reduce the chance of rain beginning Monday. But it also means temperatures are set to drop sharply, to around freezing by Wednesday. That makes hypothermia a concern for those who are wet and lacking electricity.Celebrities, among them supermodel Gisele Bündchen who is from Rio Grande do Sul, have been sharing links and information about where and how to donate to help flood victims. Churches, businesses, schools and ordinary citizens around the country have been rallying to provide support. Volunteers gather in order to help residents evacuate from an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) The U.N. refugee agency is distributing blankets and mattresses. It’s sending additional items, such as emergency shelters, kitchen sets, blankets, solar lamps and hygiene kits, from its stockpiles in northern Brazil and elsewhere in the region.On Thursday, Brazil’s federal government announced a package of 50.9 billion reais ($10 billion) for employees, beneficiaries of social programs, the state and municipalities, companies and rural producers in Rio Grande do Sul.The same day, the Brazilian air force parachuted more than two tons of food and water to areas that are inaccessible because of blocked roads. The navy has sent three vessels to help those affected, among them the Atlantic Multipurpose Aircraft Ship, which it said is considered the largest warship in Latin America. It arrived on the state’s coast Saturday.The U.S. has sent $20,000 for personal hygiene kits and cleaning supplies and will be providing an additional $100,000 in humanitarian assistance through existing regional programs, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday. Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo) ___Eléonore Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.___The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. 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ELDORADO DO SUL, Brazil (AP) — More rain started coming down on Saturday in Brazil’s already flooded Rio Grande do Sul state, where many of those remaining are poor people with limited ability to move to less dangerous areas.More than 15 centimeters (nearly six inches) of rain could fall over the weekend and will probably worsen flooding, according to the Friday afternoon bulletin from Brazil’s national meteorology institute. It said there is also a high likelihood that winds will intensify and water levels rise in the Patos lagoon next to the state capital, Porto Alegre, and the surrounding area.
Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)
As of Saturday afternoon, heavy rains were falling in the northern and central regions of the state, and water levels were rising.Carlos Sampaio, 62, lives in a low-income community next to soccer club Gremio’s stadium in Porto Alegre. His two-story home doubles as a sports bar.
Even though the first floor is inundated, he said he won’t leave, partly out of fear of looters in his high-crime neighborhood, where police carry assault rifles as they patrol its flooded streets. But Sampaio also has nowhere else to go, he told The Associated Press.
“I am analyzing how safe I am, and I know that my belongings aren’t safe at all,” Sampaio said. “As long as I can fight for what is mine, within my abilities to not leave myself exposed, I will fight.”At least 136 people have died in the floods since they began last week, and 125 more are missing, local authorities said Friday. The number of people displaced from their homes because of the torrential rains has surpassed 400,000, of whom 70,000 are sheltering in gyms, schools and other temporary locations.
Gas cylinders float in flood water at a gas distribution center after heavy rains in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
“I came here on Monday — lost my apartment to the flood,” Matheus Vicari, a 32-year-old Uber driver, said inside a shelter where he is staying with his young son. “I don’t spent a lot of time here. I try to be out to think about something else.”
Some residents of Rio Grande do Sul state have found sanctuary at second homes, including Alexandra Zanela, who co-owns a content agency in Porto Alegre.Zanela and her partner volunteered when the floods began, but chose to move out after frequent electricity and water cuts. She headed to the beachfront city of Capao da Canoa — so far unaffected by flooding — where her partner’s family owns a summer home.“We took a ride with my sister-in-law, took our two cats, my mother and a friend of hers and came here safely. We left the Porto Alegre chaos,” Zanela, 42, told the AP by phone. “It is very clear that those who have the privilege to leave are in a much safer position, and those living in the poorer areas of Porto Alegre have no option.”
Volunteers push a wheelchair transporting a resident evacuated from an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Weather across South America is affected by the El Niño climate phenomenon, a naturally occurring event that periodically warms surface waters in the equatorial Pacific. In Brazil, El Niño has historically caused droughts in the north and intense rainfall in the south, and this year the effects have been particularly severe. Scientists say extreme weather is happening more frequently because of climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels that emit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, and overwhelmingly agree the world needs to drastically cut the burning of coal, oil and gas to limit global warming.
But there is also a need for social policy responses, said Natalie Unterstell, president of Talanoa Institute, a Rio de Janeiro-based climate policy think tank.
Hens stand on the roof of a flooded home after heavy rain in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
“Providing an effective response to climate change in Brazil requires us to combat inequalities,” Unterstell said. In Brazil, the poor often live in houses built from less resilient materials such as wood and in unregulated areas more vulnerable to damage from extreme weather, such as low-lying areas or on steep hillsides.“We cannot say that the worst is over,” Rio Grande do Sul Gov. Eduardo Leite said on social media Friday. The day before, he estimated that 19 billion reais ($3.7 billion) will be needed to rebuild the state. The scale of devastation may be most comparable to Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, Sergio Vale, chief economist at MB Associates, wrote in a note Friday.
Residents rest in a gymnasium converted into a shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)
Rio Grande do Sul has the sixth-highest gross domestic product per capita among Brazil’s 26 states and the federal district, according to the national statistics institute. Many of the state’s inhabitants descend from Italian and German immigrants.“In the popular imagination, the population of Rio Grande do Sul is seen as white and well-off, but this is not the reality,” said Marília Closs, a researcher at the CIPO Platform, a climate think tank. “It’s very important to dispel this fiction, because it’s constructed with a political objective” to erase Black and poor residents, she said. In Canoas, one of the hardest-hit cities in the state, Paulo Cezar Wolf’s small wooden house has been fully submerged, along with all his belongings. The truck driver, who is Black, now lives in the back of a loaned truck with six of his neighbors, who all cook, eat and sleep there.
People who lost their homes to flooding live in a truck trailer in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Friday, May 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Wolf, 54, has considered leaving the rural region, where he has lived since childhood, but has nowhere else to go and doesn’t want to leave behind his four adult children.“It is too late for someone like me to move somewhere else,” Wolf said, wearing a donated sweatshirt as he stood on a highway.The meteorology institute predicts the arrival of a mass of cold and dry air will reduce the chance of rain beginning Monday. But it also means temperatures are set to drop sharply, to around freezing by Wednesday. That makes hypothermia a concern for those who are wet and lacking electricity.Celebrities, among them supermodel Gisele Bündchen who is from Rio Grande do Sul, have been sharing links and information about where and how to donate to help flood victims. Churches, businesses, schools and ordinary citizens around the country have been rallying to provide support.
Volunteers gather in order to help residents evacuate from an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
The U.N. refugee agency is distributing blankets and mattresses. It’s sending additional items, such as emergency shelters, kitchen sets, blankets, solar lamps and hygiene kits, from its stockpiles in northern Brazil and elsewhere in the region.On Thursday, Brazil’s federal government announced a package of 50.9 billion reais ($10 billion) for employees, beneficiaries of social programs, the state and municipalities, companies and rural producers in Rio Grande do Sul.The same day, the Brazilian air force parachuted more than two tons of food and water to areas that are inaccessible because of blocked roads. The navy has sent three vessels to help those affected, among them the Atlantic Multipurpose Aircraft Ship, which it said is considered the largest warship in Latin America. It arrived on the state’s coast Saturday.The U.S. has sent $20,000 for personal hygiene kits and cleaning supplies and will be providing an additional $100,000 in humanitarian assistance through existing regional programs, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday.
Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)
___Eléonore Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.___The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
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Recent heavy rains in Brazil have caused severe flooding, displacing residents and destroying homes. The images of people seeking shelter in makeshift accommodations are a stark reminder of the devastating effects of climate change. As extreme weather events become more frequent and intense, vulnerable communities are the ones bearing the brunt of the impact.
A Call for Urgent Action
It is clear that urgent action is needed to address the challenges posed by climate change. Governments, organizations, and individuals must come together to implement sustainable solutions that can mitigate the effects of global warming and protect those most at risk.
Building Resilience and Adaptation
Investing in resilient infrastructure, early warning systems, and community preparedness is crucial to help communities adapt to the changing climate. By building resilience and promoting adaptation strategies, we can reduce the vulnerability of populations to natural disasters and ensure a more sustainable future for all.
Supporting Climate Change Initiatives
It is heartening to see that organizations like the Associated Press are providing financial support for climate and environmental coverage. By raising awareness and funding important journalism in this field, we can better understand the challenges we face and work towards meaningful solutions.
Conclusion
Climate change is a global crisis that requires immediate attention and collaborative efforts. By acknowledging the impacts of climate change, supporting initiatives that address these issues, and implementing sustainable solutions, we can create a more resilient and sustainable future for generations to come.
Exploring Climate Change Impacts and Resilience in Brazil
The Resilience of Communities in the Face of Climate Change
As the world grapples with the increasing impacts of climate change, communities in Brazil are facing the harsh realities of extreme weather events. Recent heavy rains in Rio Grande do Sul state have led to flooding, displacing residents from their homes and highlighting the urgent need for resilience strategies.
Building Sustainable Solutions
It is crucial for governments and local authorities to prioritize sustainable infrastructure development to mitigate the effects of climate change. By investing in flood-resistant housing and early warning systems, communities can better prepare for and respond to natural disasters.
Empowering Vulnerable Populations
Vulnerable populations, such as those living in informal settlements, are disproportionately affected by climate change. It is essential to empower these communities through education, access to resources, and inclusive decision-making processes to enhance their resilience and adaptive capacity.
Supporting Climate Action
International cooperation and financial support are key in supporting climate action in regions like Brazil. By mobilizing resources and sharing knowledge, countries can work together to address the root causes of climate change and build a more sustainable future for all.
Conclusion
As we witness the devastating impacts of climate change on communities around the world, it is clear that urgent action is needed to build resilience and adapt to a changing climate. By prioritizing sustainable solutions, empowering vulnerable populations, and fostering international collaboration, we can pave the way for a more resilient and sustainable future.
Residents rest in a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo)
As of Saturday afternoon, heavy rains were falling in the northern and central regions of the state, and water levels were rising.
Carlos Sampaio, 62, lives in a low-income community next to soccer club Gremio’s stadium in Porto Alegre. His two-story home doubles as a sports bar.
Even though the first floor is inundated, he said he won’t leave, partly out of fear of looters in his high-crime neighborhood, where police carry assault rifles as they patrol its flooded streets. But Sampaio also has nowhere else to go, he told The Associated Press.
“I am analyzing how safe I am, and I know that my belongings aren’t safe at all,” Sampaio said. “As long as I can fight for what is mine, within my abilities to not leave myself exposed, I will fight.”
At least 136 people have died in the floods since they began last week, and 125 more are missing, local authorities said Friday. The number of people displaced from their homes because of the torrential rains has surpassed 400,000, of whom 70,000 are sheltering in gyms, schools and other temporary locations.