The rural municipality of Manacapuru in the state of Amazonia has been flooded by the Solimões River. Many of its residents are struggling to keep their surviving cows alive.
On Thursday, cows could not get out on dry land and stood in water up to their knees and sometimes up to their shoulders. Farmers are concerned about the forecast for more rain in the coming months.
“When we saw the water rising, we felt desperate. We have to figure out what to do to save the animals,” said Matheus dos Santos, who lives in the flooded area.
“One of the cows surfaced on top of the calf, and the calf died. That means we lost some of our production,” Mateus said of the suffering cows that bring him income.
“But this is the struggle we’re having here to try to keep our animals alive so we can then get them out on dry land before fall,” he added.
In Manacapuru, locals have had to build a new system of dry sidewalks to allow residents to navigate the flooded streets.
More than 450,000 people in the Brazilian Amazon were affected by the floods, according to the country’s Ministry of Civil Defense. The number of animals affected is unknown.
