The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvapromised this Monday to “recover the damage” caused by the rains on the coast of São Paulowhich leave at least 36 dead and 40 missing, and rebuild the affected homes in safe areas. “I can guarantee that my ministers will be willing to talk so that we can make an alliance to really recover the damage that the rain caused here in San Pablo,” the president said in a statement in San Sebastián, the most affected municipality.
Lula interrupted his rest days in the state of Bahia to fly over and see in situ the areas affected by the intense storm that affected the tourist coast of the state of São Paulo over the weekend, in the midst of the Carnival festivities. The rains are leaving scenes of destruction in the region, forcing more than two thousand people to leave their homes, in addition to the 36 deaths and 40 missing reported so far, according to the latest official balance.
“About 40 people have not been located,” Michelle Cesar of the São Paulo fire department confirmed to CNN Brazil. The same body reported 14 injured who were rescued. In addition, there are 1,730 people evacuated and 766 homeless, the authorities reported, deploying more than 600 lifeguards, the military, and the police in the rescue work. In her statement to the media, Lula made federal resources available to local authorities to “help recover” the city of San Sebastián, where 35 of the 36 deaths have been registered.
Unity message to the opposition
“You are going to have a nest again to take care of your families”Lula assured the affected families. The head of state also wanted to send a message of unity in a public meeting with the governor of São Paulo, Tarcisio de Freitasan ally of the now far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.
“It’s a demonstration that it is possible to exercise our functions in democracy, even if we belong to different parties. The common good is much more important than any divergence we may have,” said Lula, at the helm of a country that remains in a tense political climate after polarized presidential elections.
Lula asked the municipal authorities to find a safe area to “reconstruct” the houses that were buried or were damaged by landslides during the rains. “From time to time nature surprises us, but many times we also challenge it; That is why we have to think of a safe place so that we can begin to rebuild the houses of the town of San Sebastián,” said the former union leader.
It is important that “we do not build houses in a place that could be the scene of other rains, where other people could die in a landslide,” Lula told the media, touching on the problem of improvised urbanism in the country. The president also urged to work together to rehabilitate the route that connects the cities of Santos and Rio de Janeiro, which suffered significant damage. “We want to help take this city back,” he insisted.
“I lost everything”
In Brazil, 9.5 million people live in areas at risk from landslides or floodsmany of them in favelas, according to the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts of Natural Disasters of Brazil (Cemaden). In San Sebastianon whose beaches many paulistas spent the carnival holiday, 600 millimeters of rain fell in 24 hours, more than double what was expected for the month.
The house of Patricia da Silva, a 31-year-old domestic worker, was destroyed by the current of mud and stones that came down the slope early Sunday on Juquehy beach. “I am very sad, disoriented, I don’t even know what to do,” said this mother of 9 and 15-year-old girls, who added: “I lost everything.” Vanesa Cristina Caetano41, who lives with her husband and two children, said: “We were scared. The glass in the bathroom exploded with the water. We heard the water fall with trees and stones. The water entered and reached our shoulders”.
The streets continued to be blocked in at least ten points, according to Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, who declared mourning for three days in São Paulo and a “state of calamity” in six municipalities to facilitate the deployment of resources. He also released seven million reais (1.5 million dollars) for rescue tasks.
The authorities also sent water and medicines to isolated areas. The mayor’s office of San Sebastián indicated that there are still people among the rubble caused by the landslides. “The rebuilding process will be slow”said the mayor Philip Augustus. “It’s a terrifying scene”Augusto recounted on his social networks after visiting a neighborhood in which 50 houses collapsed.
Solidarity
Images disseminated by local media and social media users showed rivers of mud and rubble, ruined roads, sunken coastal roads and cars wrecked by fallen trees. With the Carnival celebrations interrupted in the region, local personalities are mobilized to offer help.
Chef Eudes Assis closed his restaurant Taioba Gastronomia for three days to prepare food for the hundreds of people who lost their homes. “In my 46 years of life, I have never seen anything like it here. People lost what little they had. It is a moment of great sadness,” Assis said on Instagram, announcing the opening of a site for donations.
Brazil suffers frequent extreme events, such as in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, where more than 230 people died as a result of heavy rains in February 2022. Scientists do not rule out a link with the effects of climate change.