If your social feeds have been full of flooded streets from Brazil this week, here is the official tally. Storms across the country's South have left 2,915 people out of their homes, according to a balance published on Sunday (Sept. 13) by Folha de S.Paulo. Paraná is the worst-hit state, with 2,057 desalojados (displaced people staying with relatives or friends) and 362 desabrigados (people housed in public shelters), figures from the state Civil Defense. Together, 2,419 people in Paraná alone.
The scale of the damage in Paraná
State Civil Defense lists 58 municipalities hit, with 64 emergency incidents recorded. The most affected cities are Cerro Azul and Adrianópolis, in the Ribeira Valley, and União da Vitória, on the border with Santa Catarina. In Adrianópolis, a stretch of the BR-476 federal highway sank at kilometer 6, federal highway police closed the road and the town was cut off by land. In União da Vitória, classes were suspended at schools that flooded or were turned into shelters, according to news site G1.
The week also brought tragedy: three people died on Thursday morning (Sept. 10) in Ponta Grossa, more than 100 kilometers from Curitiba, when a hillside partially buried a house.
As if the rain were not enough, three cities recorded tornadoes between Wednesday (Sept. 9) and Friday (Sept. 11), according to Simepar, Paraná's state environmental monitoring institute. The first, short-lived, passed over Francisco Alves, in the northwest, on Wednesday afternoon. The second struck Espigão Alto do Iguaçu, in the south-central region, early on Thursday, damaging the roofs of two schools and flattening part of a eucalyptus plantation. The third came around 4 p.m. on Friday in the rural area of Goioerê, with no injuries. Simepar is still analyzing the events to rate their intensity on the Fujita scale. Weather outlet MetSul, based in Rio Grande do Sul, had already reported Paraná's third tornado "in just three days".
Where the situation stands
In Santa Catarina, the number of cities in emergency rose: 17 municipalities have declared a state of emergency, according to the state Civil Defense, as reported by G1. Rio Grande do Sul remained unstable, MetSul said. The scale shows up in unexpected places: in western Paraná, the Itaipu dam opened its spillway for the third time this year to control the reservoir, and the walkway at Iguaçu Falls, one of Brazil's most famous tourist attractions, closed after heavy rain, according to G1.
Where to follow: Simepar bulletins and Paraná Civil Defense alerts are the official sources for anyone in the region. Free coverage runs on G1 (g1.globo.com), which keeps dedicated pages for Paraná and Santa Catarina, and on MetSul (metsul.com), a weather news site.