Extreme weather leaves Manaus with eight dead and a trail of destruction

A landslide in Manaus, Amazonas state capital, last Sunday (12) hit 11 houses in the Jorge Teixeira neighborhood, in the east of the city, which caused eight deaths. The tragedy caused by heavy rains led Mayor David Almeida to declare a state of public calamity.

According to a study by the collaborative network of NGOs MapBiomas, Manaus is the city with the largest expansion of urbanized areas in precarious settlements in Brazil. The study points out that the region where the tragedy occurred was not registered as a risk area, although it was within a precarious settlement delimited by IBGE.

MapBiomas highlights that human actions have caused major changes in the environment, which led to extreme concern among scholars and environmental defenders. Since 1985, urban occupation in risk areas in Manaus has increased by about 1,319 hectares, equivalent to 10,000 football fields. Manaus concentrates more than 36% of all risk area occupation in the state.