Since the unprecedented deluge started last week, at least 85 people have died and more than 150,000 were ejected from their homes by floods and mudslides in Rio Grande do Sul state, authorities said.
The search is becoming ever more desperate for 134 people reported missing among the devastation that also left 339 people injured.
The disaster, which experts and the government have linked to climate change, has left the state resembling "a scene out of a war," the state's governor Eduardo Leite said Sunday.
In total, 385 cities, towns and villages have been hit, many of which remain cut off from the world -- without access to drinking water or electricity or any means of calling for help.
In Porto Alegre, the state capital with 1.4 million inhabitants, many suburbs remained under water even as the sun shone Monday.
"Last night, the water came up to the corner and had stabilized. Today, we woke up and it was outside my house and rising," Neucir Carmo, a 62-year-old resident of the Floresta neighborhood, told AFP.
"We don't know how high it will go."
The Guaiba River, which flows through the mega-city of high-rise buildings and wide streets, reached a record high level of 5.3 meters (17.4 feet) Sunday -- well above the historic peak of 4.76 meters that accompanied devastating floods in 1941.
By Monday morning, the level had receded slightly, to 5.27 meters.
The MetSul meteorological agency said on its website that some parts of Porto Alegre, the wider metropolitan region and valley settlements "will be uninhabitable for weeks to months."
Some regions had received the equivalent of a third of average annual rainfall in just a few days, it said.
"The scenario is complicated because the weather conditions, excellent today, will not continue like this. On Wednesday, the areas affected by flooding in Greater Porto Alegre and the valleys may experience rain again," said MetSul.
- Climate change meets El Nino -
The deluge, which started a week ago, has swept away bridges and dozens of roads, complicating relief efforts that have to rely instead on helicopters and boats.
Some 14,000 soldiers are aiding search and rescue professionals and volunteers working against the clock as concerns grow about supplies of food, potable water and other essentials.
Donations of food and medicine poured in from around the country, and Good Samaritans have contributed the equivalent of about $7.6 million to a rescue fund.
The country's star footballers have mobilized in the drive to raise funds, with players like Vinicius Jr, Neymar and Ronaldinho adding their faces to a call by the Brazilian Football Confederation for donations for victims.
At the state's civil defense logistics center in Porto Alegre, mountains of donations were awaiting distribution as state officials flew critical medical supplies to flooded areas.
Authorities said there were more than 47,000 people in public shelters and field hospitals set up after hospitals and clinics were flooded.
Classes in Porto Alegre have been suspended until Wednesday, and schools are being used as makeshift shelters, officials said.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the region Sunday for the second time in days, promising the federal government would provide "all the necessary" resources needed for the reconstruction of the state, home to 11 million inhabitants.
South America's largest country has recently experienced a string of extreme weather events, including a cyclone in September that killed at least 31 people in the same region.
Brazilian climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino told AFP the flooding was the consequence of a "disastrous cocktail" of climate change and the El Nino meteorological phenomenon.
According to MetSul, "the biggest concern is the indications... that between the 10th and 15th of May there would be a new episode of instability with a risk of excessive rain in Rio Grande do Sul."
These would once again affect Porto Alegre and the Guaiba River, it said.
'Today I saw death': Tales of horror as floods hit Brazil
Porto Alegre, Brazil (AFP) May 6, 2024 -
In all her 74 years Lorena Martins had never seen anything so horrible: a torrent of foul, rust-colored flood water engulfing her modest home in Brazil, taking away everything but her family.
With help from her son-in-law, Martins steps out of a boat manned by firefighters who managed to persuade them to abandon their home in a poor district of the city of Porto Alegre, which has been devastated by days of flooding.
The latest in a string of weather catastrophes to hit the South American giant has left dozens of people dead or missing and forced nearly 130,000 from their homes in the capital of southern Rio Grande do Sul state.
The boat carrying Martins arrives at a flooded intersection that has become a makeshift pier for rescue operations.
Motorboats, jet skis and row boats come and go constantly as crews try to persuade people who refuse to leave their flooded homes.
A military police officer from neighboring Santa Catarina state, Dionis Bellettini, has shown up as a volunteer, eager to help in this improvised rescue armada.
Some people are refusing to leave their homes for fear of seeing them looted, said Bellettini, who wears a life jacket and civilian clothes despite his military status.
"We cannot force them to leave. It is optional," he tells AFP as three men behind him try to repair a motorboat needed for the many rescue trips that await them. A four-wheel-drive vehicle towing yet another boat pulls up to join the operation.
- 'It is so sad' -
These volunteers are urgently needed because the government cannot save all the people standing on their rooftops looking at streets turned into rivers in this booming 250-year-old city of 1.4 million people, which manages at once to be both modern and quaint.
Martins, her son-in-law Elisandro, his wife Carmen and their 14-year-old daughter Giovanna stand on the street corner fiddling with bags of food, like uncooked pasta. They look out sadly at all the water everywhere and comfort their two dogs.
The moment is almost peaceful compared to Saturday, when they saw the reddish flood waters rise steadily in their home and they decided to stay put anyway.
"Today I saw death," said Martins, acknowledging that the flood water scared her.
"My little house is abandoned now. I am trying to stay calm," she says, as her voice quivers and she can no longer speak. Martins looks positively exhausted.
"It is so sad," she manages to say. "I think about the poorest people."
The toll in the flood so far is 83 dead and 111 missing.
- 'Scenes of terror' -
The number of people forced from their homes is also rising as rescue efforts press on during a break in the torrential rains.
A stunning amount of water has pushed the Guaiba river and its tributaries to the highest level ever recorded.
"We have seen scenes of terror," said Filipe Bezbatti, a 27-year-old event organizer in a wet suit as he tries to fix the boat he uses to make one rescue run after another.
"It should be the government that is leading," Bezbatti complains.
"This is people helping people," adds Jefferson Martines, a 28-year-old entrepreneur who is also helping with the rescues.
The two men met on the street corner that has become a makeshift operations center and are now on the same team.
Not far away a nurse named Paola Martinez holds out food to try to lure three dogs across a waterlogged street. Bezbatti eventually helps her get them into a boat and onto dry land.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said the state will get all the resources it needs in order to rebuild. And Governor Eduardo Leite has said it will need nothing short of a Marshall Plan, like the one that rebuilt Europe after World War II.
But for now people have more immediate needs: things like food, clothing and medicine.
It is midday and the sun is beating down as neighbors rescue neighbors all over the flooded and shellshocked city.
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