Winnipegger living in Brazil hopes world will help amidst deadly ...

Gavin Axelrod · CBC News

· Posted: May 08, 2024 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 hours ago

A former Winnipegger says he's feeling grateful and lucky to have a safe place to stay amidst deadly flooding that's decimated Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. 

Flooding in the state caused by heavy rains has killed at least 90 people, with more than 100 still missing as of Tuesday. More than two-thirds of the almost 500 cities in the state have been impacted, leaving over 100,000 people displaced.  

"It's really an unprecedented natural disaster here for this region," said Luke Zinger, who lives in the state's capital city, Porto Alegre. "It's not like Winnipeg where we get seasonal flooding, they get seasonal rains. It's common to have rains this time of year, but this level of disruption and just excessive water is completely out of the ordinary for them."

The city is situated on a large river called the Guaiba, Zinger said. And as heavy rains continued through the weekend, the water levels began to rise to dangerous and destructive levels. 

"There was just water in places that you would have never imagined water being there and it was rising. Lots of military presence, lots of helicopters," he said. 

"There were boats coming back and forth just rescuing people." 

Zinger, who has been living in Brazil for about five years, left his apartment in the city's central area Monday afternoon, after the power and water in the building had gone out and the building's first floor started to take on water. People at the building were putting down sandbags when he got a message from his friend that he had water and electricity and Zinger could stay there. 

He stuffed some clothes, his passport and laptop into a bag and made an hour-and-a-half walk down the main thoroughfare there to catch a bus. While there wasn't any panic, traffic was congested, sirens wailed and police were guiding boats to where they'd be able to rescue people. 

"You imagine apocalyptic scenes right, with all these helicopters and sirens and everyone's bumper-to-bumper traffic trying to escape something," he said. "Then you see the water, you see the water just rising and it was just coming and rising all day." 

While Zinger has found safe refuge in the northern area of Porto Alegre, he knows not all are as lucky. 

There are dozens dead and many are missing. Thousands are in shelters, thousands more are displaced plus there's a lack of drinking water and food.

And the rebuilding efforts that will come in the wake of the flooding will be "insane," Zinger said. 

"You're going to talk about trying to rebuild whole cities and highways and bridges and complete infrastructure of a region that has millions of people," he said. 

More severe rain was also forecasted to start Tuesday night in the southern part of the state, according to the National Meteorological Institute. Rainfall could exceed 150 millimetres or about nearly six inches by early Wednesday.

The drop in temperature has also caused concern among authorities there about hypothermia. 

Meanwhile, Zinger hopes the rest of the world will lend a hand to his adopted home. 

 "Whole areas are destroyed and we have a loss of life, it's going to get worse before it gets better and it's just really sad and scary and it's really hard to think about all of our neighbours here that have lost everything," said Zinger. 

"Obviously Brazil is not as wealthy as Canada as a country and it's really hard for a lot of people financially to repair and put everything together and they just lost their entire home, so it's going to be really difficult and we're going to need a lot of help down here."