Here we write about the greatest climate tragedy ever experienced in Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Southern Brazil. In many ways, it may be the biggest Brazilian climate tragedy. A survey carried out by Folha de S. Paulo newspaper shows that the number of 600 thousand people displaced by the flood is the highest in relation to all other disasters provoked by rains in Brazil.  Until the end of May, there are 169 dead people, 50 missing ones and more than 800 injured. In total, it is estimated that 2,3 million have been affected.

Maybe this tragedy is the one that finally reinforces the idea that this scenario is a result of climate change, putting the clime in the agenda of media and social media. But with the destruction caused by the flood that affected 450 of the state’s 497 municipalities and left entire cities in ruins, the questions remains: could it be any different?

The abandonment of a protection system

Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, had 46 of its 96 neighborhoods affected. It is from the capital, which is still under water in many places, including downtown, that, while we write, we found clues that the outcome of this story could have been different.

In the 70’s, Porto Alegre built an important and robust system of protection to avoid other floods like the one in 1941, so far the biggest ever registered. It included 42 miles of earth dikes, a 1.6 miles wall along Mauá avenue, on the banks of Guaíba River, 14 floodgates along the wall and several pump houses spread throughout the city.

In 2017 the city hall decided to extinguish the municipal body responsible for its maintenance, the storm sewer department, to cut costs. The dispersion of responsibilities and technical knowledge has hidden a maze of faults and disinvestment that have been occurring over time and that became visible just when the system should fulfill its function. Instead, it collapsed. Many floodgates were stuck and there were several other structural problems that put Porto Alegre, literally, under water.

If the tragedy is announced, everyone knows prevention would be better

We cannot say that what is happening in Rio Grande do Sul is a big surprise, at least not for government officials and scientists. On the one hand, there were many studies indicating that, with global warming increase, Rio Grande do Sul would experience major floodings (and the state actually had a big and concerning flood in September 2023 that destroyed many cities). This data had been pointed out, for example, in the Brazil 2040 study, commissioned by federal government, during Dilma Roussef’s presidency, but was considered alarmist and then was shelved.

On the other hand, knowing about this and other studies and warnings, government officials preferred to ignore it and keep with the agenda of shrinking the state and handing it over for the private sector. Governor Eduardo Leite stated that he was aware of the warnings, but his priority was the fiscal agenda. Rio Grande do Sul even commissioned a disaster prevention plan in 2017, as reported by Agência Pública, that never got off the ground. There is also a decline in investment in Civil Defense, for example, as well as in the project to manage responses to natural disasters.

Moreover, Eduardo Leite’s administration had changed almost 500 points of Rio Grande do Sul Environmental Code, dismantling environmental protection framework in the state. It is not something just local. In Brazil, during Bolsonaro’s presidency, there was open incentive to deforestation, without any constraint.

The legacy is painful for those who live the results of environmental tragedy. And it persists. Lula’s administration, which has been acting to minimize the tragedy with programs and emergency social policies, needs to deal with misinformation and denialism that disturb even aid for those affected by the tragedy, as well as intend to minimize the presence of State as an articulator of both prevention and solutions to the crisis. The ode to privatisaion and the disassembling of State persists in the legislature. During the crisis in Rio Grande do Sul, federal deputies put forward the so-call “Destruction Package”, a set of at least 25 bills against environmental legislation already established.

The path, therefore, we know will be long. If there is no change in the political logic capable to stop environmental destruction and redirect public investment in preventing disasters and tragedies resulting from climate change, we know this is just a beginning of a new cycle which is not encouraging at al.

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Help to rebuild RS

Trade Unions, social movements and civil society are intensely helping to rebuild the state and to assist affected families. Even though, after more than a month with many cities under the water, Rio Grande do Sul is still in the emergency phase of the tragedy. The upcoming ones are going to be long and costly. Human losses are irreparable and material ones are estimated in billions of reais. Here is how to donate:

Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-Terra (MST)

MST is organizing a campaign to support rural populations affected, smallholder family farmers. Read more information here.

Donations in dollars

Donations in euros

Donations in british pounds

Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem-Teto (MTST)

Solidarity Kitchens

MTST, which already has a solidarity kitchen in Porto Alegre, now needs help to

increase production and be able to assist more people in this calamity. Read more information.

Donations in dollars

Donations in euros

Donations in british pounds

Paypal:

PIX: enchentes@apoia-se

Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT-RS)

CUT Trade Union is running a solidarity emergency campaign to help families affected by the floods. Read more information.

For donations:

– Cresol Bank (133)

– Agency 5607

– account: 18.735-6

– CNPJ: 60.563.731/0014-91

– PIX: 51996410961

– Donations of products and merchandise

This kind of donation is tax exempt. The donor simply needs to take the goods to a carrier of their choice and indicate as recipient of the donation the CNPJ of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: CNPJ: 00.394.536/ 0006-43.

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This blog was originally posted on the GRRIPP website: https://www.grripp.net/post/solidarity-with-the-people-of-pernambuco, on Tuesday 7 June 2022. 

As we were gathered for our first GRRIPP LAC face-to-face event in Recife, Brazil, we and our partners found ourselves in the middle of the disaster that hit the city. An intense and never-seen-before volume of rains took the state, causing the rivers to rage and destroying homes, families and lives. The Civil Defence was able to confirm 128 deaths, and 9,302 people were made homeless. The scale of the disaster is unprecedented.

The lack of proper public policies and prevention measures, in addition to the intensification of climate change, make Recife a city particularly at risk. While the level of rain that fell onto the state of Pernambuco is higher than usual, this event is far from being unpredictable. According to a risk analysis from Recife’s own local council, based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC Climate Change), the city occupies the 16th position of vulnerability worldwide. The region combines low topography juxtaposed with areas with high risk of landslides, intense urbanization, high population density and high ecological, tourist and economic values.

As rescue services couldn’t reach the most remoted areas, local communities organised themselves to survive and help each other. Two of our GRRIPP awardees, Cosmonucleação Regenerativa and Quilombo do Catucá, are located in some of the most affected areas of Recife and Pernambuco. While their material losses are high, they have been doing an incredible work of solidarity and support in their neighbourhoods. The leaders from the projects, mostly black and indigenous women living in the periphery, are acting as focal points and caretakers for the victims in their communities. They hosted families who had to leave their house, cooked and distributed food baskets in their area, and continue organising solidarity actions locally. Since last week, we were able to map a first list of 140 families being directly supported by our awardees in four territories.

To attend to the needs of the most vulnerable, they are organising a fundraising. The money will enable them to provide basic food baskets and hygiene material, as well as buying blankets and clothe for those who lost their homes. We are sharing here their initiative, and calling on your generosity to support their campaign and contribute to their emergency fund.

Solidarity actions in Zona da Mata Norte 

Credits to: Marília Nepomuceno

Solidarity Actions in Quilombo do Catucá

Credits to: Louisa Acciari and Moabia dos Anjos 

To contact them directly:

smariliapinheiro@gmail.com

elainemsalbuquerque@gmail.com

chadeterra@gmail.com

In solidarity with all the people of the state Pernambuco,

The GRRIPP Team

Written by Dr Louisa Acciari and Mônica Ribeiro.

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This is the worst tragedy lived by Petrópolis to date, even though floods and landslides are nothing new to this region. According to Agencia Brasil, so far, the Civil Defence was able to count 232 deaths, while over 1,000 people were made homeless. Among the victims, the gender gap is quite expressive: 138 women compared to 94 men. This means that, as of today, about 60% of the victims are women. Similar catastrophic events have hit the city before; in 1988, floods led to 134 deaths, and in 2011, landslides – also provoked by heavy rains – led to 73 fatalities. This comes on top of the on-going pandemic crisis, with a current weekly rate of 5,000 infections and around 70 deaths in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Despite the unprecedented scale of the event, the mechanisms are well-known and this disaster could have been prevented.

 

An avoidable disaster

Investments, containment, and protection projects cannot be treated as a surprise or an emergency when rains are forecasted for every beginning of the year. Nature is implacable: it does not wait for political election or the end of the sanitary crisis. Yet, the state’s responsibility is huge. If local powers were used to invoke the lack of economic resources for structural protection, now, the bill will be higher: we need new houses, new streets, new plans, indemnities, sanitary adjustments, investment in public health. This comes along with mourning and suffering in the face of loss of human life. Numerous testimonies of families affected by the tragedy are being published. Those are people who lost their spouse, children, grandparents… as well as their homes and living environment.

The areas impacted by the landslides are known to be risky: the 2007 Municipal Risk Reduction Plan indicated the ‘high’ and ‘very high risk’ areas, which were precisely those affected in the city of Petrópolis. Despite the existence of such a plan, persistent problems of land tenure, irregular occupation, increasingly intense rain and lack of proper urban planning, keep putting vulnerable populations at risk in the region. Specifically, in the Morro da Oficina, more than 700 houses were in danger, with more than 240 identified at the highest risk level. Those are the houses of low-income families who are left with little alternatives.

In a text published in 2013, Eduardo Antonio Licco already pointed out the deficiencies in urban planning and early warning systems in Petrópolis. For instance, interviews with victims of the 2011 floods reveal that the noise of the rain covered that of the alert sirens, and that people did not how to proceed in this type of situation. In the face of existing evidence, one could expect that local and federal authorities would have taken more robust actions to protect the inhabitants of Petrópolis.

The politics of death

This tragedy comes at a time where the Brazilian government is already being accused of crimes against humanity for its bad management of the Covid-19 crisis. For so many of us, it feels like human life does not matter to decision-makers. Scholars and social movements alike have referred to the concept of necropolitics, coined by the African author, Achille Mbembe (2003), which describes the politics of death organized by the state. According Mbembe, in exceptional situations, the state would have an illegitimate use of force to determine who should live and who should die. The abandonment by the Brazilian state of the most vulnerable sections of the population in the face of Covid-19, and now with the landslides in Petrópolis, can be understood as a way of organizing the death of the poorest.

According to mapping conducted by the journal UOL on the Portal of Transparency of the municipality of Petrópolis, in 2021, 2 million BRL (approximately 290,000 GBP) were reserved – but not actually spent – for works of prevention of landslides. In contrast, the marketing and Christmas lighting budget amounted to 5.5 million BRL (approximately 800,000 GBP); twice the budget for disaster prevention. The amount allocated to “scenic, ornamental and decorative lighting for Imperial Christmas 2021” exceeds the resources for containment works in the 1st District – the most affected by the rains – as indicated in the mapping carried out by the Municipal Risk Reduction Plan.

Gender and intersecting inequalities

Finally, we can notice the higher death rate for women; out of the 232 fatalities, 138 were women and 94 men. Although it is way too soon to draw definitive conclusions, and keeping in mind that this proportion may change, we can try to suggest some possible explanations.

Many studies show that women are more vulnerable to disasters, because of a combination of factors such as their social roles, lack of access to resources or political marginalisation. Research on floods points to the fact that women tend to feel more responsible for their families, making them less likely to evacuate the affected-area on time, and that once in a shelter, they will take on all the reproductive and caring tasks to keep their families alive (see for instance Siena & Valencio, 2009).

An exemplary case of these gendered-dynamics is women affected by dams, as in the city of Morada Nova de Minas. Since 1960, with the construction of the Três Marias dam, forced migration and reduced income have affected the population, especially women. In 2019, after the rupture of the Brumadinho dam and speculation of water contamination, it was noticed that despite the loss of work and reduced income, women stayed and resisted on their lands, often mentioning their support network, bonds of affection, and cultural connection.

The burden of care work has been widely debated in the context of the pandemic crisis, and existing data show that women have absorbed the core needs of their households during the lockdown period, often at the detriment of their own remunerated job and well-being. In Brazil, a survey conducted by the feminist organisation SOF shows that 50% of women started taking care of someone during the pandemic, while 40% said that the situation of social isolation put the sustainability of their household at risk. Thus, we could imagine that many women, mothers, and spouses, were at home taking care of the house or of someone else.

What now?

While rescue services are still working to save lives and identify the names of those missing, we can reflect on the state of public policies in Brazil. Rains are nothing new and they will certainly happen again, so it is time that our elected representative make the right decisions and investments, and start valuing human lives. Local plans for risk reduction and emergency response already exist; all it takes is adequate resources to make them effective. How many more tragedies do we need for governments to take action?

If you read these lines and want to support the victims, here is a link with a list of local actors that are accepting donations: https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/nacional/saiba-como-ajudar-as-vitimas-das-chuvas-em-petropolis-rj/.

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Dr Louisa Acciari is Research Fellow and Co-director of the Centre for Gender and Disaster at the University College London (UK), and Research Associate of the Núcleo de Estudos em Sexualidade e Gênero (NESEG) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Louisa is also the Global Network Coordinator for GRRIPP.

Email: l.acciari@ucl.ac.uk

Recent publications: Pinto, C., Acciari, L., Brites, J. et al. (2021) Os sindicatos das trabalhadoras domésticas em tempos de pandemia: memórias da resistência, FACOS-UFSM: https://www.ufsm.br/editoras/facos/os-sindicatos-das-trabalhadoras-domesticas-em-tempos-de-pandemia-memorias-da-resistencia/

Acciari, L., del Carmen Britez, J., & del Carmen Morales Pérez, A. (2021). Right to health, right to live: domestic workers facing the COVID-19 crisis in Latin America. Gender & Development, 29(1), 11-33.

Mônica Ribeiro is a doctoral student at the Graduate Program in Sociology and Anthropology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, researcher at the Núcleo de Estudos em Sexualidade e Gênero (NESEG). Mônica is Professor of Scientific Methodology at the Instituto de Ensino Superior Planalto – IESPLAN and Coordinator of the Scientific Journal of the Institution.  

Email: monicatsribeiro@gmail.com

Recent publications: Ribeiro, M.T.S. (2021) Vozes Submersas: Políticas Públicas, desenvolvimento e resistência lá na Morada. Belo Horizonte: Editora Dialética.

https://www.amazon.com.br/Vozes-Submersas-pol%C3%ADticas-desenvolvimento-resist%C3%AAncia-ebook/dp/B099SCKWS4/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Ribeiro, M. T. S; Collares, I. Z.; Calazans, D.R.N de S. et al (2021): The construction of the Três Marias dam and the absence of public policies for the arrival of the waters in the municipality of Morada Nova de Minas in Brazil. Edward Elgar Publishing:

https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781800889361/9781800889361.00023.xml