At least 10 people have died in floods caused by torrential rains in Brazil’s south, authorities said Wednesday, as rescuers searched for nearly two dozen individuals reported missing.Tens of thousands of people across Rio Grande do Sul have been left without drinking water, officials said, and telephone and internet services were down in at least 60 municipalities.
In an effort to reach dry ground, residents of the small city of Encantado have been leaving the area on foot or by motorcycle over damaged and mud-caked roads, AFPTV observed.
About 100 kilometers (62 miles) away, the town of Sinimbu was submerged in water, its streets transformed into rivers.
Mayor Sandra Backes said the town was without internet, drinking water and electricity, describing the situation as “a nightmare.”
“Sinimbu is like a war zone, completely destroyed… All the stores, businesses, supermarkets — everything is devastated,” she said in a video posted on Instagram.
In Santa Cruz do Sul, lifeguards used boats to transport residents, many of them children, to safety.
The region’s rivers had already been swollen from previous storms, and torrential rains in late March left at least 25 people dead in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo.
South America’s largest country has suffered a string of recent extreme weather events, which experts say are made more likely by climate change.
The floods came amid a cold front battering the south and southeast, following on a wave of extreme heat.
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