Inevitably attention is now returning\u00a0 to the causes of the disaster.\u00a0 ABC News has an excellent article exploring the issues<\/a>.\u00a0 The piece uses an excellent quote from Ant\u00f4nio Guerra, who is a professor of geography professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro<\/a>, and who has studied weather-related catastrophes in Petropolis for almost 30 years. He says:<\/p>\n \u201cRain is the great villain, but the main cause is poor land use. There\u2019s a total lack of planning,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This is exactly right.\u00a0 The Google Earth image of Petr\u00f3polis below shows a sprawling city built between and on steep slopes, with little or no planning and few attempts to make the slopes safe:-<\/p>\n Google Earth image of the city of Petr\u00f3polis in Brazil.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n .<\/p>\n The city has over 300,000 inhabitants, many of whom live in poorly planned housing on steep slopes.\u00a0 The ABC article<\/a> notes that in 2017 about 20,000 households – 18% of the total – were located on slopes with high or very high risk.\u00a0 Climate change is of course elevating that risk, primarily because of increasing rainfall intensities.<\/p>\n That Petr\u00f3polis has high levels of landslide risk is not news.\u00a0 Almost 30 years ago Ant\u00f4nio Guerra published an article (Guerra 1995<\/a>), available online, reviewing catastrophic events in the city between 1940 and 1990.\u00a0 The abstract of the article notes that:<\/p>\n “Petr\u00f3polis has suffered 1,161 catastrophic events (1940-1990 only) including landslides, mudslides, rockfalls and floods. Most events are caused by heavy rains…The number of deaths appears to be increasing and nearly 90% of the events occurred within urbanized areas. Currently the principal responses are reactive, rather than preventive.”<\/em><\/p>\n The management of landslide risk in cities in expensive and difficult, but Hong Kong has demonstrated that it is possible<\/a>.\u00a0 Petr\u00f3polis will continue to suffer disasters, probably at an accelerating rate, unless action is taken.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/files\/2022\/02\/22_02-Petropolis-6.jpg\")
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