Announced tragedies

Weather challenges government, that has to be prepared for future events and their impacts on the population. Geologists denunciate the lack of public policies for these situations

More than 20 persons dead, 61,000 houses damaged, 52 municipalities affected. This is the result of the heavy storms that had fallen in the state of Espírito Santo during the month of December, 2013. Rains caused floods that destroyed bridges, roads, houses, entire neighborhoods. They also affected the local production of agriculture and cattle raising and interrupted the traffic on the ways that connect the inland to the offshore. In several cities, life had to be rebuilt.

In São Paulo, the little city of Itaoca, in the Ribeira River valley was practically devastated by a storm that caused 23 deaths, as already occurred in the cities of São Luiz do Paraitinga and Cunha, also hit by heavy storms in former years. In these two cities, sensors that inform when the river level is rising were installed. This is an alternative that also may be used in Itaoca.

At the lake region of Angra dos Reis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, the Civil Defense proclaimed state of emergency in January 3 due to the heavy storms that caused several earth slips, with at least 15 persons injured and hundreds of unsheltered people, most of them installed temporarily in public schools. The more damaged districts were Bracuí, Santa Rita, Frade and Parque Mambucaba. Two years before, the lowlands of Rio de Janeiro faced the worst weather tragedy of the Brazilian history, with 918 deaths after a storm that devastated seven municipalities. In 2010, a series of earth slips left 30 dead people in Angra dos Reis and more 11 dead people in the neighboring towns.

In all these cases, the sad confirmation is that the country is not prepared enough to foresee high rain volumes neither to reduce their negative impacts. Each year the events are repeated, affecting all regions. After the tragedy, resources are destined for emergency actions, normally palliative. Policies that include urbanization programs, control of soil occupation and mainly resources for monitoring rains and floods are still lacking.

It is a world problem

Heavy rains never were news in a tropical country such as Brazil. But the strong urbanization of metropolitan areas which occurred in the last 50 years and the increase in the density of population in areas of hills, valleys and coast only increased the impact of long-period rains. This problem is worsened by the changes in weather that are affecting the world and that became the enemy number one of mankind in the last 20 years.

The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Changes (IPPC)—an area of the United Nations that is responsible by generating scientific weather information—published in 2007 the Special Report about Management of Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters for the Improvement of Weather Adaptation (SREX), a diagnosis of the devastating effects of weather changes in the planet. The document highlights that it is time of the countries being prepared for inevitable extreme events. The report contains details of climatic disasters occurred in the past and about the trends for the whole world. In addition, it presents the discussion of measures of risk control and actions already taken that may became references.

According to data of the United Nations Office for Reduction of Disaster Risks (UNISDR), 302 natural disasters occurred in 2011, killing 29,782 persons, mainly in Asia. In the same period, Brazil had 900 deaths caused by earth slips and flood resulting from storms. Losses due to these disasters were estimated in US$ 366 billion.

Among the tragedies highlighted by the SREX is the flood occurred in 2005 at Mumbai, India. A storm that lasted less than 24 hours killed more than one thousand persons and left 2.7 million persons unsheltered. According to the IPCC, Mumbai is in the list of cities that may become uninhabitable due to floods, storms and rising of sea level.

To show how adapting actions can make the difference, the report tells about two tropical cyclones: a weaker one that reached Mumbai in 2008 killing 138,000 persons and another that—although destroying Bangladesh in 2007—caused the death of 3,400 persons.

Although both countries are quite poor, the consequences of the cyclones were very different. According to the IPCC, Bangladesh is working since 1970 with international groups in a way to prevent itself against storms. The country installed alert systems, built dams and shelters and adopted measures to maintain swampy areas that help to protect the cities against water invasion. Since Myanmar has a more closed political system, the interchange of information is forbidden and there are no preventive measures.

The report alerts to the need of implementing complex measures such as migrations on a large scale and the mobilization of entire communities. “Many people will have to abandon the places where they lived their entire life and with which they have cultural and historic bonds,” said Chris Field, one of the publishers of the report.

For the IPCC, there are evidences that these extreme changes in weather and ocean level are result of human activities, including the emission of greenhouse gases. But there are not enough data to blame mankind by some disasters such as a higher frequency of tropical cyclones.

Mapping critical areas

The frequent occurrence of natural disasters of higher and higher magnitude and the repercussion caused by them leaded to the creation of a specific program to manage this subject—the Program nº 2040 Management of Risks and Response to Disasters and the National Plan of Risk Management and Response to Disasters (PNGRD), in preparation—inserted in the Multiannual Plan (PPA) 2012-2015.

An important initiative of the National Secretariat of Civil Defense in the year of 2012—that allowed to know the history and profile of disasters in Brazil—was the Brazilian Atlas of Natural Disasters.

In its first version, the survey studied the period between 1991 and 2010: Volume Brasil, organized by the Centro Universitário de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Desastres (CEPED – University Center of Studies and Research about Disasters) from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and published in 2011.

This is a unique survey of occurrences considered as natural disasters that traces a panel of their occurrence in the country at least in the last decade. The second version, published in 2013, includes a balance of the occurrences in the country during 2012 and a comparison with 2011, marked mainly by the tragedy of the earth slips in the mountain region of Rio de Janeiro.

The federal work in this area included also another initiatives: the development of the Diagnosis of the National Plan of Risk Management and Response to Disasters (PNGRD), organized by the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and the creation of the System of Integrated Information about Disasters (S2ID), a way to spread official information about disasters in Brazil that allows—among other functions—the construction of a reliable database about disasters in the country.

The consolidation of data presented in the yearbook allowed to organize the information referred to the distribution of disasters occurred in Brazil, as well as to identify those that more affect each region. All this work will be used during the next years to compare the occurrences of these events and may become an important database for consulting and developing actions of planning and management of risks. We may not say that this is enough, but it is a start where nothing existed.

Main occurrences

During the year of 2012, 376 natural disasters were officially recorded in Brazil. These disasters caused 93 deaths and affected 16,977,614 persons and 3781 municipalities (65.06 percent of them due to the dry weather). Northeast region had the highest rate of municipalities with problems (47.16 percent).

The Southeast region—that had the highest percent of deaths (75.27 percent of the country total)—had 35.64 percent of the disaster events. The Northwest region—which presented the higher percent of affected people (32.79 percent of the country total)—had only 5.59 percent of the disaster events.

Technology to face tragedies

Brazil is looking for technology and knowledge to face the heavy climate tragedies. One of the first initiatives in this area is the agreement with the Japanese government signed in July, 2013 into the scope of the Basic Agreement of Technical Cooperation Brazil-Japan.

.The agreement was signed by representatives of the Ministries of Cities, National Integration and Science and Technology, by Brazil, and by The International Cooperation Agency of Japan (JICA) representing the Japanese government.

After facing the Tsunami in 2011, Japan improved its systems of weather forecast, prevention and alerts, and integrated its systems of civil defense. On the other hand, the earth slips that caused tragedies in 2011 at the region of hills in the state of Rio de Janeiro and before in Blumenau (SC), motivated the interest in an alliance between both countries to face problems which are common to them.

The agreement—that will be effective for four years—includes the transference of Japanese know-how on this subject and leaded to an international seminar—Rio Bosai 2013—carried out in August, 2013 at Rio de Janeiro.

The Project for Strengthening the National Strategy of Integrated Management of Risks in Natural Disasters is effective since last August. Brazil started to receive Japanese experts in specialties such as policies of disaster management; risk evaluation and mapping; forecast and alert; regulation and planning of soil use; planning of prevention and recuperation; floods and meteorology. The project also includes training of more than 20 Brazilian technicians in training centers located in Japan.

The cities of Petrópolis (RJ), Nova Friburgo (RJ) and Blumenau (SC) were selected for a pilot program whose purpose is to use them as a model of better practices of integral risk management in Brazil. Based on the results obtained, these practices will be replied in other areas.