Is Brazil's flood catastrophe a climate warning? - The Global Story podcast, BBC World Service

Introduction Hi there, I'm Caitríona Perry. From the BBC  World Service, this is The Global Story.  Today, Brazil's endless flood. It's  a story that has shocked this giant   nation and sent a warning to our warming  world. One of Brazil's richest regions,   including a gleaming city, is still struggling  with water a month after freakish storms.  Three months of rain fell in less than  two weeks. It swept away homes, roads,   bridges, factories and livestock and more than  half a million people have been displaced.  President Lula is calling  it a climate catastrophe.  We'll wade into just what that means  with our reporter who's met those who   are being told their homes will never be rebuilt. We've got two people with us today who are  really close to this global story. They're   both with BBC Brasil, which serves audiences  there in Portuguese. Daniel Gallas, hello,   Shock at scale of flooding you're in London. Thanks for joining us on  The Global Story. You are from the city at   the heart of this crisis, Porto Alegre, how  has it felt seeing your hometown submerged?  It was pretty horrible, pretty shocking  because it happened very fast. It was,   we usually get the news here when we wake up,  but I remember just overnight going to my cell   phone and just reading the news because we knew  something big was about to happen, but we didn't   know quite how big this was going to be. And when you woke up to those messages,   what kind of things were your  friends and family saying to you?  Fleeing houses overnight We heard stories of people having to flee their  houses overnight. I had one close family member   who left her house to an apartment building in the  city of Canoas, which was heavily affected. And   then it was four in the morning when the people  in that apartment had to flee to Porto Alegre to a   safer area. And they're still there, actually, you  know, it's been a month and they're still there.   It's 15 people who left their houses, you know,  in the middle of the night. And a month later,   they still haven't gone back to their houses. And Leandro Prazeres, you're in the Brazilian   capital in Brasilia. You're not long back from  the flood zone, and we'll get to your reporting   in just a moment. But firstly, on a personal  note, have you ever seen anything like this?  Like an area that had been bombed The comparison that I was making was between what  I saw in Haiti just after the earthquake, one year   after the earthquake. The impression that I had  was that I was in an area that has been bombed.   I was always talking to people who were in a very  difficult situation. The scenario was of complete   destruction and people were completely lost. Daniel, let's start from the beginning.   Take us right back and give us a  description, a physical description   of your home state of Rio Grande do Sul. We're talking about an area, firstly,   What is Rio Grande do Sul like? that's heavily populated, densely populated.  Like I said, it's more than 3 million people   living around that urban area. So Porto Alegre  was just this, you know, normal city with a very   beautiful riverside. Brazil is a tropical country,  but this is below the tropical area, so it's   all a very balanced situation. This is a river  area that's surrounded by small river islands,   and the satellite images show that all of these  islands were submerged by water, and many of these   islands actually had big nice houses, but they  also had entire cities. There was one city called   El Dorado do Sul, where everyone had to flee. Gosh, and you're right, those satellite images   are quite remarkable to look at. We know  the forecast for rain began in late April.   So walk us through the first stage of the  crisis. What were those early rains like?  Three months of rain in two weeks There was a lot of destruction right from the  beginning. We saw images of bridges falling,   there were problems with hydroelectric dams,  and then the weather just kept on getting worse,   and it got worse in Porto Alegre, and the water  was just flowing down first from the hills,   then to Porto Alegre, and then to the south.  So the same water was just causing destruction   through all these areas. Recently, we've known  that some parts like the stadium and the airport,   the water finally came down and they found lots  of fishes in those areas. So the whole airport   became part of the river and the airport's fairly  far from the river actually and many of these   neighbourhoods, you've seen fishes coming  up because they became part of the river.   It's like a significant portion, some entire  neighbourhoods, they just became part of the river   and not just for a few weeks for a whole month. Three months of rain fell in two weeks. Leandro,   you were sitting in Brasilia. How did  Brazilians everywhere respond to this?  Reactions from around Brazil There was this huge wave of solidarity. There  were people from different places, people even   from different parts of the world, Brazilians  elsewhere. But in Brazil, it was massive. Some   rescue workers from Roraima, which is a northern  state, who have to travel like 4,000 kilometres   just in order to help. They travelled across the  country and they went to the southern Brazil to   help the population there. And of course soccer  absolutely massive in Brazil there was a charity   football match as well to try and raise funds. The rivalry between these two major football   Footballers and Olympians help out teams, Gremio and Internacional, it's very famous  but they kind of like, they forgot this rivalry   they organised football matches, they even unified  a t-shirt, which was unimaginable a few weeks ago,   so basically they were all united in order to help  the population that was affected by these floods.  Of course, it wasn't just footballers, there  were other athletes who got involved as well. Logistical difficulties after the flood You spent ten days on the ground, how hard  was it to get there and to get around?  The main difficulty was that there were just no  flights from Brasilia to Porto Alegre because the   international report was closed. The roads  from Porto Alegre to different cities in   the Rio Grande do Sul State, some of them were  blocked and some of them are still blocked.  So there would have been the same difficulties  trying to get aid there as well. Tell us about   the people you met when you did arrive. They felt lost, because they had never seen   The people 'felt lost' something like that happening in their area. I'm standing at one of the main improvised   harbours that's been used by rescue  workers to bring people to safety from   flooded areas. From this port, the victims of  this tragedy are taken to improvised shelters,   many of them set up and stopped by volunteers.  People have been expressing anger and some   frustration as the situation continues. They  complain that it's not clear to them when they   will be able to resume their lives or even if they  are going to be allowed to go back to their home.  It's one thing when you know that  you have somewhere to go back,   but it's a completely different story when  you have the feeling that the place that   you used to call home simply doesn't exist. And as journalists, when we go to these places,   we rely on people to tell us their story, but that  is often very difficult for people to do. And I   think that happened with you, didn't it, when  some people were describing their situations?  What people have lost We were talking about an old lady with her son,  her son is unemployed. She relies on a very,   very small pension and she was always saying  that for her to be able to build this house,   she had to starve, she had to save  up a lot of money during her entire   life and then she said, well, it's all gone. And the policy in some areas is that residents   Abandoned neighbourhoods are to be discouraged from ever going back home? In this particular area I'm talking about, I'm   talking about a neighbourhood called Moinhos, and  it's located in a city called Estrela. I talked   to the authorities of Estrela and they told us  that they are not going to allow people to return   there, so they are not going to install to resume  the electric grid, they are not going to resume   water supplies because they want to discourage  people to return to these areas because they feel   like this is now a very dangerous area for people  to live and they don't want to be responsible for   any more damage across the population. And Daniel, these policies are in line   Promise of new homes with recommendations from the government of  the state of Rio Grande do Sul, aren't they?  It's a very difficult situation. And that's why  I think the authorities now have to actually   rebuild the entire state and that's the  narrative that's coming from all government. So Brazil was already suffering,  you know, like all these countries   suffering with the cost of living crisis and  the post-pandemic economy. Now on top of that,   the authorities have to practically rebuild  a state that accounts for six percent of the   national economy, so it's a huge task ahead. Two words have loomed over this story from   Impact of climate change the beginning. Climate change. President Lula's  government has called this a climate emergency.   Lucas, our listener there in Brazil, wrote  to us saying there is no doubt this scenario   has to do with climate change. What's the  evidence there? Well Sarah Keith-Lucas from   the BBC Weather team sent me a note. Well this part of southern Brazil is   certainly no stranger to heavy rainfall  but what we know about these floods were   that we had really active frontal systems  that just got stuck across the region.  So there was high pressure both to the north and  the south and that trapped rain bearing weather   fronts that would normally move through quite  quickly. So in just three days, for instance,   Porto Alegre received two months worth of  rainfall. This rain continued for around   about 10 days. And of course, a lot of talk  about climate change. And it's always difficult   to say that climate change is directly  responsible for a single weather event,   but the World Weather Attribution Network have  done a study and they've concluded that these   floods were made around twice as likely due to  human-induced climate change and more intense too.  How Brazilians think and talk about climate change Have these floods changed the way Brazilians  think about or talk about climate change?  Climate change has always been a topic in Brazil  but in a different circumstance. Brazil has always   seen as its great contribution to the world to  avoid deforestation and avoid causing more of   these climate events, but Brazil is not known  for suffering with these climate events. It   has problems with massive poverty, inequalities,  huge violence, education problems, lack of access   to health, and climate was just not in the list.  And I think now it's made into the list because   everyone's seen that this can actually undo  everything else that you have in your life.  President Lula is someone who has been  talking about climate change and the facts   of climate change for quite a long time.  At the beginning of his third mandate,   climate change was a very common topic  in his speeches. But on the other hand,   some members of his cabinet were talking about oil  exploration in areas near the Amazon, for example.  And when we're talking about preparedness and  rescuing and readiness and recovery and so on,   it brings to mind, for me anyway, New Orleans  here in the US after Hurricane Katrina,   the water stayed around for weeks.  The rebuilding took years in parts   of that city, Katrina became a byword  for government incompetence. Daniel,   this is the thing I find so shocking, it's  taking so long for the water, for the floods   Why is the water not going away? to go away. What's going on there? I mean,  presumably Porto Alegre had flood defences?  It had flood defences. A lot of them didn't  work. Some of them didn't cope with that much   water. Some of them just weren't planned  for this much water. There were problems   afterwards with sewage system and pumps that were  supposed to drain out the water from the city and   they weren't sufficient or they broke down and  some of the neighbourhoods that weren't even   affected by the floods saw water coming out of the  sewage because of these technical problems. One   thing that you mentioned that's been particularly  difficult is just assessing the damage. The water   just kept going up and down and for more than a  month it's just still there and it seems like it   has no place to go. And this is something that  you can't really, on a human level, intervene,   you know, and just make the water go away. If people still can't access their houses,   Plans for helping displaced people is there any kind of plan  locally to help them do that?  Some people want to desperately go back  to their houses. Some people just want to   leave the shelters. The shelters are not the best  places to be, especially in long -term situations.   And we've seen, you know, classes are still  suspended in a lot of schools and universities.   The two big teams that we're talking about,  football, which is a huge thing in that area,   they won't be playing in Porto Alegre for the rest  of the year because it's just not possible. The   airport's going to be shut until late December. We  know at least that the hospitals are functioning,   but you know, these crucial things and also the  non-crucial but the day-to-day things, they're   just on standby for an indefinite period of time. The whole of Brazil is watching how the government   Political importance of the floods handles this and what happens next, how  important is it that they get it right?  The whole population is worried  about what happened there and how   the government will deal with this crisis.  So I think that it puts another level,   another layer of pressure on his government. And Daniel, for your family and friends,   'Depressed' outlook of people in Porto Alegre what is their outlook? How do they think  when will Porto Alegre get back on its feet?  There's a lot of anxiety and depression, people  just thinking of the task ahead of cleaning up and   preparing for something like this to ever happen  again. It's a very bleak outlook, I ve never seen   people so depressed as they are right now. Even if  you get help from the government, the government   has a scheme where it gives you a bit of money  and salary for a few months down the line,   it might not support your business if you have  to close down your business, it certainly won't,   you know, bring back your house and you're going  to have to think about living somewhere else. So   it's huge questions and problems that people are  going to have to face for the rest of their lives.  Indeed, a tremendously difficult road ahead, but  we will look to both of you and your reporting to   keep us informed on the months and years ahead.  Daniel Gallas and Leandro Prazeres, thank you so   much for joining us on The Global Story. Thank you for having us.  Thank you Caitríona, it was a  pleasure to be here with you.  And thanks to you for watching. If you want more  episodes of The Global Story, you'll find us   wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to us to  make sure you never miss an episode and please do   tell us what you think in the comments below. Bye now!