Floods leave Brazilians with a grim choice: rebuild or leave?

Danilo José Bruxel faces a difficult task as he surveys a church and a clutch of ruined houses on a riverside street that was inundated by floodwaters a little over a month ago.

The mayor of Arroio do Meio is hunting for new plots of land for residents whose homes were destroyed after torrential rain battered Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul from the end of April.

“There’s no way we can allow people to build here again near the river,” said the politician, whose town in the Taquari Valley was left without electricity, internet and running water for a fortnight after being smashed by the waterway’s strong currents.

The rains, linked by scientists to climate change, led to what has been called the worst natural disaster in the history of Rio Grande do Sul state, an agricultural powerhouse with a territory larger than the UK and a population of 10.9mn.

The state’s response could hold lessons for other parts of the world threatened by extreme weather events associated with global warming, with officials and scientists warning that neighbourhoods and even entire towns at risk from future inundations might need to relocate.

“If they stay where they are, we’ll lose lives, assets and the economy,” warned Francisco Aquino, climatologist at the federal university of Rio Grande do Sul.

One of Brazil’s wealthiest states, Rio Grande do Sul accounts for about 6.5 per cent of the country’s GDP; alongside farming it is home to industry, vineyards and tourism.

The local economy — about the size of that of Uruguay and Paraguay combined — was set to grow by 4.3 per cent in 2024 but now it is predicted to shrink, according to calculations by business federation Federasul. Economists believe the floods will shave about 0.3 per cent off Brazil’s GDP this year. 

The rainfall, which exceeded 1,000 millimetres in some places, affected one in five residents of the state’s residents and killed 175. It left cities underwater, caused landslides that closed segments of big roads and saw the army drafted in to rescue stranded residents. About 420,000 are still displaced.

The inundation followed other floods in June, September and November last year that killed 75 people.

The scale of the damage has drawn comparisons with Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the southern US in 2005. Some estimates put the cost of reconstruction at more than R$100bn ($19bn).

Federasul’s president Rodrigo Costa describes the impact of the floods as “devastating”. “To restructure in a more resilient and robust way for this new reality of climate alterations, we’re talking about a number of years,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges facing the authorities would be to convince people to remain in the region and creating sustainable communities, said Aod Cunha, an economist and former state finance secretary.

“There are so many short-term emergency demands, I’m afraid the long-term solutions to avoid damage related to climate change might not get the right attention,” Cunha added.

This is already felt in the small valley community of Roca Sales, where the floodwaters of the Taquari river left behind a huge crater. At footwear manufacturer Beira Rio, the town’s biggest employer, the workforce is down by about a quarter to 650 and the company is struggling to find new workers.

“It was always a bit difficult to recruit new workers,” said Rodrigo Argenta, the company’s vice-president. He added that since the floods, “employees asked to leave or have moved away . . . it was very traumatic”.

Agriculture has been particularly badly hit by the floods. Rio Grande do Sul produces more than two-thirds of Brazil’s rice, along with soyabeans and other crops, and losses are expected. Livestock have perished by drowning or through lack of feed due to transport difficulties.

Tadeu Wodzik, a smallholder who has made a living growing carrots, cabbage and beetroot for three decades, has nothing left of his plot but a vast pond and the empty shell of a greenhouse; his organic vegetable garden is still submerged.

“It was ready to harvest, there just wasn’t time,” said the 55-year-old in Eldorado do Sul, outside state capital Porto Alegre. “Now we have to start all over again.”

To help Rio Grande do Sul to recover, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has announced support packages worth R$62.5bn, including a freeze on the state’s debt repayments to the federal government for three years and subsidised credit for businesses.

However, some private sector leaders say the measures are insufficient, with many companies unable to post collateral for loans or needing forbearance on existing debts.

In the municipality of Encantado in the Taquari Valley, family-owned soap and chemical manufacturer Fontana had already faced shutdowns due to previous floods; the latest one caused damage almost equal to the R$60mn it had invested in recent years.

“It makes me want to cry. Without help, a lot of companies will succumb,” said board member Ângelo Fontana. The company plans to relocate some of its operations, but part of the plant cannot be moved. “In reality, a business like ours can’t be here. The river will stay, so we have to leave,” he added.

Critics have accused the authorities of failing to adequately prepare for the floods. Scientists and engineers say infrastructure and monitoring systems need to be improved and adapted to make the country more resilient to threats from global warming.

The extreme rainfall that led to the floods was made more likely by climate change, and intensified by the El Niño phenomenon, which warms the Pacific Ocean’s surface and changes global weather patterns, according to a study by the World Weather Attribution group.

“There has been an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme [weather] events in Rio Grande do Sul over the last two decades, and especially in the last five years,” Aquino from the federal university of Rio Grande do Sul said. “It’s likely to increase due to climate change.”

In the short term the most pressing tasks facing the local authorities are repairing bridges and finding homes for the displaced as temperatures drop in the southern hemisphere’s winter.

On a sunny morning in the historic downtown of the state capital, workers swept out storefronts and threw debris left when the filthy flood waters receded on to heaps outside.

The entire area had been swamped after the Guaíba river broke its banks to reach 5.3 metres — far above a previous record of 4.76 metres in 1941.

“We have no certainty it won’t happen again,” said Marcia Regina Lubenova, who runs a small indoor car park and café. “But we have to grab on to hope. We gauchos are warriors.”

Additional reporting by Beatriz Langella

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