At least 35 people died in heavy rainfall in northeastern Brazil on Friday and Saturday after straits hit two major cities along the Atlantic coast, the fourth major flood in the South American nation in five months.
In the state of Pernambuco, at least 33 people died on Saturday afternoon as the rains caused landslides that wiped out urban neighborhoods on the hills, according to the state’s official Twitter account. Another 765 people have been forced to flee their homes, at least temporarily, according to the state government.
Authorities in the neighboring state of Alagoas have registered two deaths, according to the Brazilian Federal Emergency Service.
In late December and early January, dozens were killed and tens of thousands displaced when rains hit the state of Bahia, also located in northeastern Brazil. At least 18 people died in floods in the southeastern state of Sao Paulo later in January. In February, torrential rains in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro killed more than 230 people.
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While much of Brazil has spent most of 2021 in severe drought, unusually heavy rains have begun to arrive in the last months of the year.
The deadly floods that followed provoked debate about the potential role of the climate crisis in Brazil’s volatile climate model and focused on the nation’s often random urban planning.
Many of the deaths on Friday and Saturday occurred in the state capital, Pernambuco Recife. As in many urban areas in Brazil, many of Recife’s neighborhoods are built in places vulnerable to land and mudslides.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has assembled a federal task force to send to Pernambuco on Saturday, according to local media.
His main opponent in the October presidential election, leftist Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, complained about the flood on Twitter. “My solidarity with the families in the Recife metropolitan area who are suffering from heavy rains,” he wrote.
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