Floods in Brazil leave 150,000 homeless and dozens dead or missing

By Amanda Perobelli and Leonardo Benansatto

ELDORADO DO SUL, Brazil (Reuters) – Rescuers rushed on Tuesday to evacuate people stranded by devastating floods in Brazil's southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, which have left at least 90 dead, thousands of homeless people and survivors desperate for food and basic necessities.

In the suburb of Eldorado do Sul, 17 kilometers from the state capital of Porto Alegre, many people were sleeping by the roadside and told Reuters they were hungry. Entire families set out on foot, carrying their belongings in backpacks and shopping carts.

“We've been without food for three days and we just received this blanket. I'm with people I don't even know, I don't know where my family is,” said a young man who donated his name as Ricardo Junior.

Flooding has hampered relief efforts, with dozens of people still waiting to be evacuated by boat or helicopter from affected homes. Small boats crisscrossed the flooded city looking for survivors.

The state's civil defense agency said the death toll stood at 90 and four other deaths were under investigation, while 131 people remained missing and 155,000 homeless.

Heavy rains that began last week caused rivers to flood, flooding entire towns and destroying roads and bridges.

Rain is expected to ease on Thursday, but continue through the weekend.

Climate experts have attributed the extreme rainfall in Rio Grande do Sul to the confluence of a heat wave caused by this year's El Niño phenomenon, which is warming Pacific waters and bringing rain to southern Brazil; a weaker cold front with rain and gales from Antarctica; and unusual warmth in the Atlantic also increasing humidity.

Global warming exacerbates these phenomena and intensifies the effects between these systems, making the weather unpredictable, said Marcelo Schneider, a researcher at the National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet).

POWER CUTS

In Porto Alegre, a city of 1.3 million people, downtown streets were underwater after the Guaiba River overflowed and reached record water levels.

Residents of Porto Alegre faced empty supermarket shelves and closed gas stations, with stores rationing sales of mineral water. The city distributed water in trucks to hospitals and shelters.

The floods also affected water and electricity services, with more than 1.4 million people affected in total, according to Civil Defense.

Nearly half a million people were without power in Porto Alegre and surrounding towns, as power companies cut off supplies for safety reasons to flooded neighborhoods. National grid operator ONS said five hydroelectric dams and transmission lines had been closed due to heavy rain.

The city's airport, whose apron is underwater, has suspended all flights since Friday.

Fuel shortages were reported as state oil company Petrobras said it was having difficulty transporting diesel from its badly flooded Canoas refinery in the Porto Alegre metropolitan area, a senior government official said .

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told a government television broadcast that the extent of the damage would not be known until the waters had calmed. He promised federal aid to the state in what is considered the worst climate disaster ever.

Economists at JP Morgan forecast that the impact of the floods on the Brazilian economy would result in a slight decline in GDP growth and a slight increase in inflation, mainly due to rising rice prices, which are largely produced in Rio Grande do Sul. The government said Brazil would import rice to stabilize the market.

In addition to destroying critical infrastructure, heavy rains and flooding left grain fields underwater and killed livestock, disrupting the soybean harvest and halting work at several meat plants.

The Port of Rio Grande, a major port for grain exports, was operating normally, the state port authority said. However, main access roads were impassable, disrupting grain deliveries to the port as trucks had to take a wide detour, exporters said.

(Reporting by Amanda Perobelli and Leonardo Benansatto in Eldorado do Sul, Leticia Fucuchima, Ana Mano and Roberto Samora in Sao Paulo, Marcela Ayres in Brasilia and Debora Ely in Porto Alegre; writing by Anthony Boadle; editing by Rosalba O'Brien)