O rio só quer passar: tragédia climática no Rio Grande do Sul | Um documentário Brasil de Fato

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It's like my father used to say: "Nature is a wheel". Today it goes around and one day it will come around. And you're the one speeding it up.

Human beings are speeding up the wheel. Rio Grande do Sul faces the worst disaster ever recorded in the state's history. The rain came back hard.

The level of Guaíba River reached a record high. The Taquari Valley, in Rio Grande do Sul, has faced three environmental disasters in eight months. The river reached flood level: 62.

3 feet. Almost all the residents of Eldorado do Sul have been evacuated. Look, this is where the flood hit us.

Here it used to be my father's bar. Now I'm heading to where my father used to live. Right here.

Over there, where that woman is standing, it used to be my house. And my brother lived on the second floor. In September there was another flood, which covered our house.

So, since September, we have not stopped repairing. Just when we were, let's say, finally getting things settled, then came another one and left us stranded again. This time it was to finish it off.

Then it started to rise and rise until it reached inside, so I grabbed my family and we left. And I came back alone. Since I have a boat and my brother has another one, we rescued some people who were still in the neighborhood.

I rescued people from the roofs of houses that had disappeared. After half an hour there was no one left. Civil Defense had left, there was no one, it was dark already.

So, I tried to leave and at the last moment my boat broke down. I sent a message to my wife telling her not to worry, because I would find a way to get back. But I knew it wasn't going to work, I wasn't coming back.

So, I left the boat, went down a little further, hit a wall and stood still. Then my brother came back, it was about. .

. Shit, man. .

. It's hard to say this. I saved a few people, but in the end, I was saved by my brother.

We were planning to pursue other things. Now we're back to square one, because first we have to put a roof over our heads, right? We negotiated a small piece of land with a friend.

I'm taking some boards to make a small shack and start building at some point. I've worked all my life. My father raised us and all and now he has no home.

He can't afford to build anymore, he's old, he can't take a mortgage. Then there's my mother, and a little brother with her, you know? We're the ones left.

It's not like we're doing well financially either. But we are going to get ahead, we are going to work, we'll find a way. Monday, May 13.

As stated in the forecast, the water is rising again. Here I see memories, you know? Memories of Sofia's bedroom or from when I got pregnant.

I remember our wedding, when we first moved here. Each piece of furniture came from a lot of hard work, a lot of my husband's sweat. It's a sad feeling, really.

This was my bedroom. This was our kitchen. In these freezers we stored our food.

In this one. Here was my baby girl's room, my Sofia. I was joking around with the girls at the settlement saying I'm building everything with bricks.

I'm making the countertop with bricks, I'll try to make the couches out of pallets. Now we are afraid the floods will come back, you know? And it's not even winter yet.

Nelson is uprooting the seedlings, trying to save some since the river water has risen so much that it has flooded the garden behind our house. I grow vegetables, corn and I have a rice field as well. We couldn't save any of it.

The vegetables we used to deliver to the Charqueada PAA, household items, the car, this Beetle we used every day to get around, to transport. . .

We would go to the street market and bring products as well. We lost 100%, we couldn't save anything. The water rose up to this point.

We lifted everything inside. I just removed some of the stuff. There were some boats here.

. . I didn't touch the sink cabinet, I didn't dare to open it yet.

The couch is here, the water brought it. Look, it's damaged, that's mold. Look where the water reached!

It was horrible. How will you get in? Through the window at the top, do you see it?

Or through the other side, where there's a larger window. So, in 2015, came the first one that reached the house. But people used to say and we knew: "The forecast is for more disasters, climate change is happening".

Then we got to 2023, when there was a flood and I thought: "Well, it took eight years, it's not coming again". So, I started to prepare myself, to recover psychologically, because I was waking up with the feeling that the water was already there. I was scared.

So, it startled us. Well, as you can see, the water made it up there. Up there, see?

So, this is eight or ten feet high. . .

Be careful. Yes, it's just as you see it. This is the first time I open the house.

Look how it ended up. Here is my painting of Shiva. It's funny how sometimes things like this happen: "Oh, there was a tragedy, and the statue of the Virgin Mary didn't move".

For me it was Shiva, look, it's in the same place. And you know, he is the one of destruction. He was left here alone.

We've moved things around, but you can still see where it stayed, see? Look, he stayed here. Right here.

Here. We were surprised because it's something very fragile. Some of these were gifts from my father, who's still alive, but when I look.

. . He gave me these dishes, other things were a gift from so-and-so.

. . I gathered a pile of dirty clothes and took them to wash where I'm staying, at my sister's, in Nova Santa Rita, and I took a curtain that my mother-in-law gave me, but it was full of mud.

"Why are you washing this? " "It was a gift from my mother-in-law, I'm going to wash it," and I did. I washed it and put it away.

I'm going to bring it back. It's been 30. .

. thirty-three years of settlement, and two more of struggle. It's all gone.

I grow a bit of organic rice, 66. 7 acres, and some conventional rice, 214. 9 acres.

What we have lost is invaluable. We came from a great drought last year and now we have lost nearly everything we planted. We were expecting a crop of 13 thousand bulks.

So, it's a tremendous loss. Not to mention what was destined for our subsistence, not to mention the animals. .

. There's a tractor in the shed, it's flipped over, and two others were covered with water. So that's four tractors and a combine harvester, all submerged.

Nature is a wheel, it spins. And human action is what will speed it up. It will spin however you make it spin.

Now, if you deforest, if you don't respect the riverbanks, you'll silt up the rivers. If you don't respect herbicides and you apply them with no control. .

. Everything affects nature. That's when the wheel spins.

That's when it makes us fall faster or slower. And, apparently, this wheel is spinning faster and faster. If this flood took 80 years to come, it will certainly come again in about 20 years, because the wheel is spinning fast, because if you don't respect nature, there's no chance, right?

First, because of the dams, and in the past, there weren't any dams. So, we have interrupted the natural course of the river and that's where all the catastrophes happen. There's no.

. . So that's how it is.

There's also no vegetation left along the riverbanks. Agribusiness won't be happy until it grows crops inside the river. With all the technology available today, they didn't need to do this.

Here we used to grow leeks, carrots, beets, broccoli, lettuce, radishes, a little bit of everything. The greenhouses were almost full. Inside them there was mostly spinach, radicchio.

. . If you compare today with the 1940s, the Jacuí and the entire region of soybean and rice production has crops even inside of the Jacuí River.

. . Not even a minimum limit is respected.

The legislation allows them to block the rivers, to plant in the riverbed. Then, when the rain comes, where does the water go? It has nowhere to go and ends up here, because we are at the junction.

We know what has really happened. There have been some floods, and now, with the planet devastated, it's only going to get worse. That's why we want to fight for resettlement.

They have put us in the wrong place. Because Eldorado do Sul was built in the wrong place, we're together in the wrong place. It is much cheaper for the government to amnesty debts than to refinance a reconstruction.

How are you going to afford a reconstruction when you have a poor credit? It's over. And how are we going to pay a debt without rebuilding, without starting a new harvest?

Working is what we have always done. We're not stopping now. We're going to fight and we're going to make it again.

I'm struck by the fact that the ones who have the power, who have the political and financial power of the State, they rather simply say that something doesn't exist. They rather deny that climate change exists, to say that "the environment is for the 'tree huggers', for the 'left-wing fanatics'". Right now, the 'left-wing fanatic' and the 'right-wing fanatic' are underwater together.

So, the link between the disasters that we're experiencing is intimate, isn't it? It's intimate. I often ask people if they remember 2021, when the Pantanal caught fire, they set fire to everything there.

And what happened right after that? Temperatures, in the summer, for example, reached 122°F in Rio de Janeiro. And we can see on all the weather maps that the cold mass here in the South can't cross São Paulo, it can't go North.

This is a result of the destruction that was caused, isn't it? Let me just open here, wait. This is my street.

I've lived here for two years. I had never seen a flood like this, that would fill the house with water. It had reached that far or a little more, but it had never got to the house.

I put these pallets here, but the water came up too high, they couldn't hold it. It was too much water. My kids and I, my wife and my two kids, lost virtually everything we had in the house.

Here's the water mark of the last one. . .

That's how far it got. My children used to sleep here. I was able to pull up the blankets.

I threw the bed out, I threw it away. I don't know if my fridge will work again. The washing machine.

. . is ruined.

I lifted everything, the shoe rack, the radio. I don't think that other fridge will work either, I didn't have time to lift everything. I live here, on the riverside, and we've been here since the first day of rain.

The houses started falling down, we got people out and everything we could. I estimate that over 300 houses were destroyed, the entire bank of the Guaíba River. As for my house, only the roof was left.

A part of it. Now it's all gone. His bar is next to my house.

His food stand was just renovated, he was going to open it next week. It fell down, it's gone. Look, Endrew.

. . Your whole new stone wall fell down, it's gone.

My stone wall fell down, the fence on the corner, it's all gone. My dream was to have my own business. When the first flood came, there was a lot of damage.

I had to close the bar. Then, just three weeks before the reopening, this flood came. .

. We lost everything. This time it took everything.

People don't have anything, and the little they have. . .

they lose it. Lami is a very forgotten place, you know? For example, they are focusing on the downtown area.

They should focus on the neighborhoods, where the poor people are. And right now, we're lost. We don't know what to do 'cause we don't know when it will stop or what will happen next.

Now we must have faith in God and strength. The people of Rio Grande do Sul are very welcoming, we help each other. Now we are in the bus, at the camp.

We're staying there. Today we are here to do good for others. People ask us: "How can you do all this, knowing that you'll have nowhere to go when this is over?

". The thing is, if I stop and think about what I lost, I'll collapse. We are in front of the Extremo Sul market, it's the highest place we have here.

I put up this tent, I set up the kitchen. If the water reaches us, we have to leave, 'cause the water is. .

. At any moment it'll flood the rest. But we should congratulate our neighbors, 'cause we all helped each other.

Since all this started, I've been the cook. I make breakfast, lunch and dinner. Today I have my hands like this.

Unfortunately, I can't cook because. . .

We know they need it. There are many people who need it. We intend to help not only those who are homeless, because many people have a home and have nothing to eat.

We help whoever needs it. Despite the difficulties we're all facing, we help everyone who needs it. The kitchen is a political decision of the MST.

We have been organizing solidarity kitchens since the other flood that devastated Rio Grande do Sul. Also because we consider solidarity to be a concrete act. And nothing can be more concrete at this point than to bring a bit of warmth and satiate people who have no access to food, because they were displaced by the flood.

It has impacted us. As a fruit and vegetable producer, I lost greenhouses, I lost crops. We lost a lot of things, I lost a shed.

. . But today we're still able to help our comrades, our people, our brothers who lost more than us.

So, we are here to lend a hand in every way. Our task is to prepare meals and put them on the truck. When the truck arrives, the meals are handed to that center, and the center distributes them to the community.

I came for a meal. Everyone collaborates, they help each other here and there, it's very nice. The meal is rice, a small package of beans and.

. . that's it.

So, it's not much, it's true, there's a lack of food. There's no sugar, no oil, no. .

. This is what saves us. If it weren't for this, we would starve to death.

This is the time to help. At times like this, there are no differences. No bickering, no grudges, no pain, no longing.

There's nothing. We have to unite, to strengthen each other. I don't mean just the Quilombo do Areal, there are nearby communities that have lost everything, and we're helping them as best we can.

We are helping with mattresses, blankets, diapers for the children, clothes, you know? We are doing what we can to help. My grandmother lived through the 1941 flood.

She tells us very clearly that it was the worst flood ever. She left her house in a wagon. It happened right here.

Now it is our turn. I had never experienced anything like this. Eleven people live here and we have lost everything.

The water made it up to here, look, just past the socket. We have nothing left here, sir. We lost almost everything.

The only thing we managed to save was the television, that's all. All the rest was lost, all of it, there's nothing left, nothing at all. And that's it, there's nothing.

We're sleeping here. We're living on donations. Here on Luiz Guaranha Avenue the water started coming out of the sewer.

Then the stream came and took over everything. My motorcycle was under water, you know? In some of the houses, as the boats came looking to see if there was anybody left or whatever.

There are houses left without their front door. In some houses, like mine, there's nothing left, not even a fridge, or a bed to sleep on. Then they turned off the water pump, they turned off this and that, and there was not much we could do.

All of this could have been prevented if we had been warned sooner, if they had done what had to be done. We all make mistakes, but if we keep making the same mistake, aware of our mistake, then it becomes a problem. The flooding is the practical effect of the minimal State in my life.

Why? Because the minimal State is the State that doesn't supervise, is the State that doesn't strengthen the means of prevention. We saw what Mayor Sebastião Mello said: "There were six pumps to remove water from Porto Alegre, but, anyway, the environment doesn't even exist".

He denies everything. And what happened? There were only two pumps that barely worked.

The minimal State was the one who changed the name of the Guaíba River to "Guaíba Lake". Why did they change it? For what?

So they could fill the riverbank with condos. I had never seen a lake with a strong stream running through it, I had never seen that. These minor changes made by the minimal State have brought us the flooding, have brought flooding to Rio Grande do Sul, have brought fires to Mato Grosso, where the whole Pantanal was burned.

The minimal State is a State that brings destruction and suffering for the less privileged people, for the poor and the middle class, you see? Here's the watermark. It reached this high.

For us it is sad, because it looks like. . .

This was a village for many years, but when it rains and fills with water, we can't call it an Indigenous village, it is a village, but it looks like a river. That's not ok for us. Here, in the village, we call the eldest person "Tiramoi".

He tells us that this is just beginning. And no one can do anything about it. No one, not the whites, maybe not even the Guarani.

The river just wants to pass through, my friend, to follow its course. The problem is what I said before, it is progress. Our world was made of earth, today 1/4 is made of concrete.

There's nothing we can do. The more progress, the more destruction. It was caused by nature, but human beings also played a role there.

Today, human beings, mankind, think about money instead of thinking about nature, about the world. We see that they deforest a lot, we can see it. We Indigenous people don't do that, but we suffer it in the same way.

Garbage, deforestation, constructing in inadequate sites, constructions and that and the other, cutting down the vegetation, the trees, the forests. So, it's also about global warming. Even the glaciers are melting, as we all know.

It's about raising people's awareness so that they leave nature alone and make this wheel spin slower. It will keep spinning. It will keep spinning, but it can slow down a little bit.

Because if things are like this in this decade, in 2024, imagine in 10 or 20 years, what will become of our children and grandchildren? I don't know. .

. "Those who live will tell", as the saying goes.