With large swaths of city of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, still underwater, internally displaced refugees face difficult decisions. teleSUR
Visit our website: https://www.telesurenglish.net/ Watch our videos here: https://videos.telesurenglish.net/en
Visit our website: https://www.telesurenglish.net/ Watch our videos here: https://videos.telesurenglish.net/en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00In the flood ravaged city of Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, internally displaced refugees
00:04face difficult decisions.
00:06Our correspondent, Brian Meir, has more.
00:09With large swaths of the city still underwater nearly three weeks after its worst floods
00:14in history, the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre is suffering from an internally
00:18displaced refugee crisis that is expected to continue for months.
00:23According to the mayor's office, roughly two-thirds of them are living in the homes of friends
00:27and family, with the remainder living in dozens of impromptu shelters that have been
00:31set up in schools, churches and gymnasiums.
00:34It was an issue of three minutes that I had to get out of my house with my mother-in-law
00:40who is in a wheelchair, my father-in-law, my daughter and three grandchildren.
00:48We had to move fast.
00:49I would like to thank the firemen who arrived because they got us out of there.
00:55First they carried my kids and my in-laws, and then me and my daughter.
00:59It was very scary.
01:03As the water begins to recede, residents are returning to their homes, assessing the damage
01:09and trying to decide whether they should rebuild their lives there or move to safer areas.
01:15This is an especially difficult dilemma for the poor, and their anger is mounting against
01:20the local government, which has criminally neglected the city's flood prevention system
01:25for years.
01:26There are a lot of children, a lot of people living in shelters that are far away from
01:32here, and the government isn't coming here.
01:35Nobody is saying anything about our favela.
01:37Nobody has said anything yet.
01:39I want to see what is going to happen to us now, because a lot of people are homeless
01:43now.
01:44The reality is here.
01:45You're filming our reality.
01:46Look at our houses.
01:48The people don't have anything left.
01:50Everyone who lived on the ground floor has nothing left.
01:52Rio Grande do Sul's Civil Defense Department says that the floodwaters aren't expected
01:57to fully recede until sometime in June.
02:00Brian Mayer, LACER, Porto Alegre.