Record rains and floods wreak havoc in northern Brazil

Torrential rain and overflowing rivers continue to devastate northeastern Brazil, where thousands of people have been displaced in the states of Alagoas, Paraiba, Pernambuco and Riogrande do Norte. At least half a dozen people lost their lives due to the intense rain in the past couple of weeks.

"The rainfall caused catastrophic floods and landslides that particularly affected vulnerable districts and people living in hillside settlements," the Brazilian Red Cross said in a press release.

Climate change has led to Brazil getting rainfall far beyond observed records, the Red Cross said, referencing data from the World Weather Attribution, or WWA, a group of international scientists that is closely following the floods in the Latin American nation.

On the ground, scientists are deeply concerned about the wild swings in the weather. Brazil grapples with fierce fires during the drought season, and with heavy rains and flooding in the southern hemisphere winter season like the current period.

"The high cost in damage and lives results from the lack of courage to protect the Permanent Protection Areas," William Magnusson, a senior researcher with the biodiversity unit of the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus, the capital city of Brazil's Amazonas state, told China Daily.

He was referring to land that has been designated for protection due to its perceived importance in preservation of vital ecosystems and biodiversity.

Although the Amazon rainforest lies about 2,700 kilometers north-west from the region currently affected by the floods, any impact on the jungle resounds as far as thousands of kilometers away during the following seasons, according to experts like Magnusson.

"If the government followed its own zoning laws in relation to the forest code, more than 80 percent of the disasters and deaths could be avoided, to great benefit to the economy," Magnusson said.

"In addition to rising ocean level, at higher temperatures, there is greater evaporation and drying of the surface, potentially contributing to the greater intensity of rainfall and duration of drought," said Ana Luiza Tunes, an environmental engineer and founder of the Brazilian environmental news portal Tunes Ambiental.

"The extreme natural events (such as floods) are increasingly happening with a higher frequency, greater intensity and in a short period of time, due to issues of climate change," Tunes said.

During the first 11 days of July, 130 towns of the state of Rio Grande do Norte received rain totaling an amount that had been expected for the whole month as a whole.

The federal government issued a state of emergency for four cities of the state, which are devastated by the floods, meaning that aid could be deployed faster to those places.

In the neighboring state of Alagoas, 50 municipalities were placed in a state of emergency as well.

"Hard rains have caused destruction in the region of Maceio … Over 50,000 people's lives are being impacted by the floods. They are in dire need of food, clothing, bedding, mattresses, and essentials," wrote Aurea Thomas, who organized an international fundraising campaign to deliver aid to the people of Maceio, the capital city of the state of Alagoas.

Speaking from the neighboring state of Pernambuco, which was severely hit by floods and rains in early June, Joao Cumaru, a political scientist, told China Daily that the federal government's prevention and response in the affected states was nowhere to be seen, while floods and environmental emergencies are becoming a new normal in society.

"Day by day, we face these kinds of human disasters more and more," he said out of Recife, the capital city of Pernambuco.

Deforestation of the Amazon jungle is taking a toll on the climate pattern in the entire region. The magnitude of rainforest lost due to logging, extensive livestock farming, and even mining, is being recorded by the federal authorities in Brazil.

In early May, Brazil's National Institute for Space Research reported the loss of 1,012 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest in the country due to deforestation. Neighboring countries such as Colombia and Peru are also witnessing the advance of mass deforestation of the world's largest natural lung.

According to the Brazilian space research body, the amount of rainforest lost in April 2022 is the highest for that month in any year since the agency began keeping records on the forest.

According to the WWA, human-caused climate change has a lot to do with the latest torrential rains in Brazil, which, according to the group, marked new highs.

"These findings are consistent with future projections of heavy rainfall in the region and suggest that these trends will continue to increase as long as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase," WWA said.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.