Ministry wants campaign for residents of risk areas – 02/22/2023 – Panel

The Ministry of Cities identified 60 priority cities to receive actions from the federal government to prevent new disasters like the one that occurred on the north coast of São Paulo during Carnival.

Among them are São Paulo, Petrópolis (RJ), Manaus (AM), Angra dos Reis (RJ), Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Teresópolis (RJ), Ubatuba (SP) and Guarulhos (SP). The list was made based on the number of landslide warnings and deaths from 1988 until last year.

Until April, the ministry will contract R$ 500 million in emergency works for threatened regions. It also proposes running an advertising campaign aimed at residents in risk areas, which would involve everything from guidance on land use to protocols to be followed in case of heavy rain. The realization of the campaign and details are still being debated within the government.

“Disaster prevention works don’t win votes, so what we’ve seen in recent years was the complete emptying of these actions”, says the secretary of Policies for Peripheral Territories of the portfolio, Guilherme Simões.

This is reflected, according to him, in the small budget foreseen for 2023 by the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to avoid new tragedies, which does not reach R$ 2 million.

The ministry now wants to seek expansion of this budgetary slice. “The amount is still being defined based on technical studies. We intend to deliver a proposal by the beginning of next week”, says the secretary.

The actions would lead to the elaboration of a national disaster prevention plan, involving the federal government, states, municipalities and civil society.

An important part, says the secretary, is offering residents of risk areas safe housing alternatives, which he classifies as an “integrated urban policy”.

“Simply removing people from where they live is a reckless solution. You just push the problems forward, and in some situations it can even duplicate them. The person goes to a new place of risk, without the previous one ceasing to exist “, he says, who is linked to the MTST (Movement of Homeless Workers).

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