Brazil recorded more than 1,000 natural disasters for the first time in 2023, an average of more than three per day, a record that experts say is directly linked to climate change.
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The National Center for Monitoring Natural Disasters (Cemaden) recorded a total of 1,161 last year, including floods and landslides, the first time since records began in 2011.
According to this public organization, these extreme rainfall events caused at least 132 deaths, more than 9,000 injuries and more than 74,000 people lost their homes.
The material damage was estimated at more than five billion reais (around 925 million euros).
“Climate change is having a direct impact on the increase in the frequency and intensity of disasters,” Francisco Eliseu Aquino, a climatologist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), told AFP on Tuesday.
All this, in his opinion, is linked to the increasing strength of the El Niño meteorological phenomenon, which is synonymous with further global warming.
“We have had an exceptional year in terms of record temperatures, with heat waves, drought problems and rainfall causing floods,” Mr Aquino added.
The expert refers in particular to the devastating floods caused by a cyclone in the south of the country in September, which claimed more than fifty lives. Around 60 people also died in landslides on the coast of Sao Paulo state in February.
However, other regions of the country were hit by a historic drought, particularly the Amazon (north).
“The year 2023 was climatically atypical, with a rapid transition from La Niña to El Niño (two opposite phenomena). The recorded rainfall amounts were well above normal in the south and lower in the north and northeast of the country, Cemaden director Regina Alvala quoted in a press release.
“Climate change has also contributed: a warmer ocean creates more vapor in the atmosphere and therefore intense and concentrated precipitation,” she noted.
Marked by a series of climate catastrophes around the world, 2023 was the hottest year in history and, for the first time in a full year, approached the 1.5°C global warming limit set by the Paris Agreement, according to the European Copernicus Observatory .
Brazil was already hit by a climate disaster at the beginning of the year, with floods in Rio de Janeiro killing at least twelve people.