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The death toll from the rains in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul rose to 57, local authorities said Saturday afternoon, while dozens were still unaccounted for.
The state’s civil defense agency said 67 people were still missing and more than 32,000 were displaced as the storms affected nearly two-thirds of the state’s 497 towns.
The floods destroyed roads and bridges and caused landslides and the partial collapse of a small hydroelectric dam. The second dam in the town of Bento Gonçalves is also at risk of collapsing, authorities said.
In Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, Lake Guaiba burst its banks, flooding streets.
Porto Alegre International Airport has suspended all flights indefinitely.
Rain is expected in northern and northeastern parts of the state over the next 36 hours, but the amount of rainfall is easing and should be well below the peak seen earlier in the week, according to the state weather agency.
“The water levels in the rivers should remain high for several days,” state governor Eduardo Leite said Saturday in a live video on his social media, adding that it was difficult to determine how long.
The Rio Grande do Sul, which borders Uruguay and Argentina, is at a geographic meeting point between the tropical and polar atmospheres, which has created a climate pattern with periods of intense rain and others of drought.
Local scientists believe the pattern is intensifying due to the climate crisis.
There were already torrential rains hit Rio Grande do Sul last Septemberas an extratropical cyclone caused flooding that killed more than 50 people.
This happened after more than two years of prolonged drought due to the La Niña phenomenon, with scant rainfall.
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