After Rio’s tragedy, with over 223 confirmed deaths, 140 of them in Niterói, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, has issued a decree ordering the removal of inhabitants in areas of risk and authorizing the use of force to do so if necessary.
According to the mayor, there is no way he will change the decision to remove people from the hillsides. “There remains a risk of more rain in the city. We cannot leave people in these areas of risk,” Paes declared at a press conference.
The decree cites sections in Article 5 of the Brazilian constitution which allows authorities to take action when there is imminent danger due to a disaster (“desastres, em caso de risco iminente”).
However, local civic associations in some slums have strongly criticized the measure. The Association of Santa Teresa Inhabitants (Amast), for example, declared that they “…did not want the mayor coming around to lament the dead. What we want is immediate, effective action by the authorities to ensure that new disasters do not happen.”
Paes announced in his Twitter page this Saturday, that part of Morro do Urubu (Buzzard Hill), in Piedade, in the Northern District, will be the first community to be resettled. According to the mayor, the families start to leave today, Saturday, and the houses will be demolished as early as Monday.
The mayor did not say where the residents will be taken though. Thirty families in the community receive care at the Jacarezinho escola de samba.
Speaking of effective disaster response, there are reports that federal government budgetary funding for emergency disaster relief was distributed in an odd way.
In 2009, 90% of the funds went to the state of Bahia. Less than 1% went to Rio de Janeiro. The ministry doing the distributing was National Integration. The minister of National Integration, Geddel Vieira Lima, left the administration last week to run for governor of Bahia.
