Food crisis in West Africa
Millions of children and their families in West and Central Africa face a growing humanitarian disaster as a food crisis intensifies across the region.
Find out moreThousands stranded by Brazil floods
08-May-2009
Three consecutive weeks of flooding in Brazil have left over 160,000 people homeless.
Plan International has released $100,000 to provide urgently needed assistance to tens of thousands of people stranded by severe flooding in Brazil.
The funds will be used to deliver immediate assistance to families displaced by floods and mudslides which have ravaged the north of the country following weeks of torrential rain.
Plan has already mobilized teams to provide hundreds of emergency kits including basics such as shelter, food, clothes, cooking utilities, mattresses, bed sheets and medicine to those affected.
The floods are reported to have so far claimed 40 lives and made around 200,000 people homeless. To date, seventeen municipalities have declared a State of Emergency.
Plan’s Regional Humanitarian Response Co-ordinator Raul Rodriguez said the floods were the worst seen for some 80 years.
One of the worst hit areas is the state of Maranhao, where Plan has two program units in the capital of Sao Luis and in Codo. Estimates put the number of homeless at around 510,000.
Emergency services said the conditions had hampered rescue efforts and they are reported to have used helicopters, trucks and boats to reach the injured and stranded.Local rivers have risen several meters above normal, provoking severe flooding. Roads and bridges have collapsed, riverside communities have been washed away.
Many people have also lost everything, their homes, their possessions and their livelihoods, in the floods. And this is one of the poorest regions in a poor country so the impact has been severe.
Raul Rodriguez
Plan’s Humanitarian Response Co-ordinator - The Americas
Raul said Plan is already working very closely with government authorities on the ground and was well-placed to make a rapid response. It has also pulled in staff from other regions to assist with the efforts.
The main risk is now is the threat of disease to thousands living in cramped conditions in schools, sports halls and other public buildings being used as emergency shelters as well as from polluted flood and drinking water.
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