Andrew Harper, climate advisor for the UN refugee agency , photographs a house partially destroyed by the floods that hit Porto Alegre, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, June 23, 2024.SAO PAULO — Record floods that killed over 170 people and displaced half a million in southern Brazil are a warning sign of more disasters to come throughout the Americas because of climate change, an official at the United Nations' refugee agency said on Tuesday .
Andrew Harper, special advisor on climate action to the refugee agency UNHCR, visited a flooded neighbourhood in state capital Porto Alegre over the weekend and called it "a ghost town." Even after the flood waters subsided, residents have not returned to the neighbourhood where streets are piled high with water-logged garbage and debris. Many are still living in shelters, including Venezuelan refugees who had resettled in Porto Alegre.Residents of some hard hit areas may never return, having been forced to move by repeated flooding, Harper said. But how many would become so-called climate migrants will only be known years after the disaster.
"We're seeing the emergence in Brazil of what we may be seeing throughout the Americas. So to ignore this, they do it at their own peril," Harper said.