what we know about the victims and rescue operations in the south of the country

At least 107 people killed, 754 injured and 134 missing. This is the terrible, provisional toll caused by floods caused by torrential rains which have been hitting southern Brazil for several days, according to the Civil Defense report published Thursday evening. And further rain is expected this Friday, May 10. The Brazilian government associates these bad weather with climate change. The latter announced that the equivalent of 9 billion euros would be invested in reconstruction.

• Rescue operations still in progress

Around 1.7 million people have been affected by bad weather and flooding in southern Brazil. More than 327,000 of them had to be evacuated by the authorities. Rescue teams are still mobilized to save residents trapped by the waters which do not recede, or those reluctant to leave their homes for fear of looting.

Rescuers are also mobilizing to save animals, like this horse that local media showed alone on the roof of a submerged house, in Canoas, a suburb of Porto Alegre, and rescued using inflatable boats. Named Caramelo by locals, his rescue went viral on social media, and not only in Brazil. “Caramelo was saved!” »exulted on X the First Lady Rosangela da Silva, known as “Janja”.

Another gigantic task for local authorities is strengthening logistics in order to accelerate the distribution of essential goods to disaster victims. “The focus is always on rescues […] but we are working very intensively on the delivery of humanitarian aid”, said Sabrina Ribas, spokesperson for Civil Defense. Efforts that should be hindered ” in a certain way ” in the coming days taking into account “heavy rain” starting on Friday.

• 9 billion euros for the State of Rio Grande do Sul

Floods caused by bad weather affected the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, and its 1.4 million inhabitants. More than 400 localities in the region were also impacted. In total, some 60,000 houses were damaged or destroyed by the natural disaster. Images of Porto Alegre airport submerged in water have made the rounds on social networks.

Head of State Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva chaired a meeting in Brasilia to discuss responses to the tragedy. The federal government has decided to inject “resources of the order of 50 billion reais [environ 9 milliards d’euros] in Rio Grande do Sul »announced Finance Minister Fernando Haddad.

The measures adopted prioritize the granting of loans to help affected workers, businesses and municipalities. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will allocate approximately one billion euros in resources “for job protection, business support and infrastructure reconstruction projects”announced the Brazilian president of the institution, Ilan Goldfajn.

• The agricultural sector hit hard

Fields and machines under water, roads cut, livestock farms and warehouses inaccessible… Torrential rains will be costly to the agricultural sector, the engine of the local and national economy, already affected by extreme climatic events.

An agricultural giant, Brazil has notably based its power on soya, of which it is the world’s leading producer and exporter. However, Rio Grande do Sul is one of the major Brazilian producing regions of this essential oilseed for livestock farming. The State was counting on a record harvest of more than 22 million tonnes this year.

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“A quarter of the soybean fields remained to be harvested”Luiz Fernando Gutierrez, analyst at the Safras e Mercado firm, told AFP. “Part of the crops will rot and be lost, the other will have lower yields than expected”he warns, recalling that “storage areas were also probably affected”.

An essential part of Brazilians’ plates, rice is also a Source of concern. Rio Grande do Sul is by far the leading producing region in the country, with 6.9 million tonnes produced last year. To cover any shortfall and prevent speculation, Brasilia has already announced the importation of foreign rice.

• Misinformation complicates disaster relief

Rescue teams have to deal with the proliferation of fake news, mainly on social networks. Experts, rescuers and simple volunteers warn of the impact that this erroneous information can have.

In a series of audios that have gone viral, a woman assures that a rescuer has just been killed, that“there are a lot of shots” and “three armed forces vehicles arrived”. She asks those who would like to help not to do so: “I’m trying to escape from here myself.”, she says. AFP found no official reports or press articles reporting rescue workers shot dead.

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Raquel Recuero, coordinator of the media research laboratory at the Federal University of Pelotas, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, discusses a campaign of ” disinformation “ which aims to discredit the authorities in charge of disaster management, based on pseudo-data

The government condemned “false and criminal stories linked to the floods”emphasizing their ” impact “ on the “credibility” institutions such as the army and the air force, “essential in emergency management”. The executive asked the federal police to open an investigation into the “possible crimes” linked to the dissemination of this false information.