Disasters and icebergs: we must go beyond

Abstract

The study by Freitas et al. 1 published in this issue of CSP is another effort to systematize and warn about the different types of disasters that Brazil has been recording, covering a more recent period than that analyzed in previous studies 2 . These studies have shown how often these disasters occur, because if every year pictures and news call out the "disaster of the time", over time, all municipalities of Brazil and their populations will be affected by different disasters.Regarding natural disasters, the intense rains caused floods and landslides, which impacted 38 municipalities in Santa Catarina in 2008, killing 106 people and affecting more than 400,000 people, thus being considered a very serious event 3 . However, in 2011, in the Serrana region of Rio de Janeiro, a new disaster affected 11 municipalities, resulting in 916 deaths and more than 30,000 displaced and homeless people 4 , being considered the most serious disaster ever recorded so far regarding immediate mortality. In the following year, one of the longest droughts began in the country, affecting mainly the Brazilian semi-arid region from 2012 to 2017 5 , which impacted thousands of municipalities and had its effects mitigated by a series of social policies (income transfer, food and nutritional security, and access to water by cisterns and water trucks) 6 . Moreover, even in this context, hundreds of children died due to outbreaks of acute diarrhea in 2013 in the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco 7 . In 2010, these same states suffered with heavy rains and floods that impacted 44 municipalities in Pernambuco and 20 in Alagoas, resulting in 56 immediate deaths and affecting more than 1,000,000 people 8.9 . Finally, the extreme floods and severe droughts in the Amazon, with two of the largest marks of monitoring between 1903 and 1921 in the 21st century, in Negro River, in the fenders of the port of Manaus (Amazonas). In 2010, the mark of the largest historical ebb (13.63m) and, in 2021, the largest historical flood (30.02m), with both events impacting on health and food and nutritional security 10 .Regarding technological disasters, we stress the rupture of mining dams in 2015 and 2019 11 . The first, from the Samarco company in Mariana (Minas Gerais), resulted in 19 immediate deaths and reached 45 municipalities (36 in Minas Gerais and 9 in Espírito Santo) in Doce River Basin, extending for 650km. The second, from the Vale company in Brumadinho (Minas Gerais), resulted in 270 immediate deaths (most recent records) and reached 25 municipalities in the Paraopeba River Basin, an extension of 300km. Both di-