Nature, 30 October 2024
How to recover when a climate disaster destroys your city
In the wake of unprecedented floods that displaced half a million people in southern Brazil, researchers are investigating how to prevent long-term mental trauma and provide lessons for other regions dealing with disasters.
Porto Alegre, Brazil
When the water started to surge from a maintenance hole in front of her house on a Saturday afternoon, Maria Margarete Jaskulski realized it was time to leave. Neighbours had warned her that flooding had already reached other parts of her neighbourhood in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In the rush to escape, she put a drawer containing her most valuable documents and keepsakes on top of her bed and then fled with her family and pets to a relative’s home across town.
Later that night, her daughter heard from neighbours that the water had filled most of their house. “I cried as if someone had died,” says Jaskulski.
The flood lingered for weeks, leaving a series of brown lines on the walls that marked the different water levels. It would be more than a month before she could return to a house filled with mud and debris. The furniture was ruined, and only the items placed on her bed were spared, the mattress having floated like a lifeboat.