Emergency workers are racing to rescue survivors as floodwaters in the southern state of Rio Grade do Sul have displaced 160,000 people.
The death toll from massive floods in southern Brazil has reached 100, the local civil protection agency said, as emergency services continued to search for dozens of missing people.
Nearly 400 communities are affected after days of heavy rain flooded the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.
Floods injured hundreds of people on Wednesday and forced 160,000 more to flee their homes, while the state civil defense agency said 128 people were still missing.
Brazil’s national center for natural disasters said there was a “high risk” of further flooding in the southern part of the state later in the day.
It said that more rainfall was expected, and even if significant amounts were not expected, the water level was already high in many places and the ground was saturated.
Many residents have no access to drinking water or electricity – or even the ability to call for help, as telephone and internet services are down in many places.
The state’s governor, Eduardo Leite, warned earlier this week that the death toll was likely to rise as “the state of emergency continues to evolve” in the state capital Porto Alegre and other areas.
Only two of the six water treatment plants in Porto Alegre – home to about 1.4 million people – were operating, the mayor’s office said on Tuesday, and hospitals and shelters were being supplied by tankers.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has promised that there will be “no shortage of resources” to meet residents’ needs.
“We understand the difficult financial situation of Rio Grande do Sul,” he said at an event in Brasilia, adding that he wanted to ensure that the state “gets everything it is entitled to.”
“We don’t yet know the exact extent of the flooding; we will only know that when the water level returns to normal,” said Lula.
Around 15,000 soldiers, firefighters, police officers and volunteers were deployed across the country to rescue those trapped and transport relief supplies.
The Brazilian Navy was also scheduled to send its ship NAM Atlantico – Latin America’s largest – with two mobile water treatment stations to Rio Grande do Sul on Wednesday.
In Gasometro, a district of Porto Alegre popular with tourists, water continued to rise on Wednesday, complicating rescue efforts.
“You can only cross on foot or by boat. “There is no other way,” 30-year-old Luan Pas told AFP next to a road that turned into a stagnant, smelly river.
Another Porto Alegre resident, Adriana Freitas, said she had “lost everything.”
“It’s sad when we see the city, our house, in the middle of the water,” Freitas told Reuters. “It seems like it’s over, like the world has ended.”