The 2008 Santa Catarina floods were floods in Santa Catarina,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

in November 2008. They occurred after a period of heavy rainfall, most significantly from 20-23 of November. The state had suffered constant rainfalls for over two months on the coast, which turned the soil wet enough to cause a landslide during the storm that hit the state in late November. It affected around 60 towns and over 1.5 million people in the state of Santa Catarina in

. At least 128 people are confirmed to have been killed with over 78,700 being forced to evacuate their homes. A further 150,000 have been left without electricity, while water rationing is being carried out in at least one town due to purification problems. Santa Catarina state Governor Luiz Henrique da Silveira had earlier suggested that the final death toll was likely to be over 50, a figure that has proved optimistic. Several towns in the region have become cut off due to floodwater and landslide debris and on November 23 the Mayor of

Blumenau Blumenau is a city in Vale do Itajaí, state of Santa Catarina, in the South Region of Brazil. It is away from the state capital of Florianópolis. The city was founded by the German chemist and pharmacist Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau ( ...

, João Paulo Kleinübing, declared a

state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...

in the city. Water levels in the

Vale do Itajaí Vale do Itajaí also known as ''Vale Europeu'' (or "European Valley") is a mesoregion located in the Northeastern part of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. It has about 1.3 million inhabitants and comprises four smaller regions: Blumenau, ...

have risen to eleven metres above normal.

Reactions

* : United States government donated US$ 50,000 to help Santa Catarina buying food and water. * : German government donated

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

200,000 to buy food, water, hygiene material and mattress. * :

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereig ...

send a message to the victims, where "want to assert spiritually in this hour of pain with the families of the victims and the thousands of evacuees and homeless this huge environmental tragedy." * : The Brazilian Federal government issued a decree on November 27, 2008 releasing US$ 854 million in aid to the State of Santa Catarina. * - : The State Governor Luiz Henrique da Silveira has suggested that "Santa Catarina is facing its worst weather tragedy of its history" and told "

has to be rebuilt entirely". He also declared that the state is per 3 days in Mourning.

Blogosphere

Soon after the floods began, various

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...

gers from

began reporting about the situation on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, providing photos, videos, forecast conditions and river levels for other people on the internet who were isolated by the floods.Estadão ''O Estado de S. Paulo'' (; ), also known as ''Estadão'' (; ), is a daily newspaper published in São Paulo, Brazil. It is the third largest newspaper in Brazil, and its format changed from broadsheet to berliner on October 17, 2021. It has t ...

Reactions

Blogosphere

References

External links