PORTO ALEGRE - Nearly 70,000 people have been forced from their homes amid deadly flooding, mudslides and torrential storms in southern Brazil, with the major city of Porto Alegre particularly hard-hit, the country’s civil defense agency said Saturday. Raging floodwaters have left 57 dead, 74 people injured and another 67 missing, civil defense said. The toll did not include two people who died in an explosion at a flooded gas station in Porto Alegre, witnessed by an AFP journalist, where rescue crews were attempting to refuel. Fast-rising water levels in the state of Rio Grande do Sul were straining dams and particularly threatening economically important Porto Alegre, a city of 1.4 million. The Guaiba River, which flows through the city, is at a historic high of 5.04 meters (16.5 feet), well above the 4.76 meters that had stood as a record since devastating 1941 floods. Authorities were scrambling to evacuate swamped neighborhoods as residents struggled in chaotic conditions to find their way to safety.
In addition to the 69,200 residents forced from their homes, civil defense also said more than a million people lacked access to potable water amid the flooding, describing damage as incalculable.
Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite said his state -- normally one of Brazil’s most prosperous -- would need a “Marshall Plan” of heavy investment to rebuild after the catastrophe. In many places, long lines formed as people tried to board buses, although bus service to and from the city center was canceled. The Porto Alegre international airport suspended all flights on Friday for an undetermined period. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva posted a video of a helicopter depositing a soldier atop a house, where he used a brick to pound a hole in the roof and rescue a baby wrapped in a blanket.
In a northern Porto Alegre suburb, 61-year-old Jose Augusto Moraes looked shaken after fast-rising floodwaters engulfed his house and he had to call firefighters to rescue a trapped child.
“I lost everything,” he told AFP.
