Flood tragedy in South Brazil partly human‑caused, specialists say
The tragedy that affected 446 municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul, South Brazil, was partly caused by the actions of people, who built houses in flood areas and failed to properly maintain containment dykes and flood barriers.Such is the assessment of Professor Roberto Reis, from the postgraduate program in Ecology and Evolution of Biodiversity at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS). Those dykes and barriers, he added, were built in the 1970s and were never properly looked after. “The planet is to blame for the flood. But the state and city administrators are to blame for the tragedy,” he remarked.In an interview with Agência Brasil, Professor Reis pointed out that state capital Porto Alegre is a floodplain area characterized by the confluence of rivers on ...