Every day, danger awaits the inhabitants of Buriticupu. In Brazil, this town of 70,000 inhabitants of the poor state of Maranhao (northeast), in the Amazon, could indeed be wiped off the map within 30 to 40 years, according to experts.
A few meters from a precipice, Deusimar Batista is drying his clothes in the sun. Around the garden of this 54-year-old woman, there is nothing left: the neighboring house has been swallowed up in a huge crater below and its street is unrecognizable. The appearance of these giant craters, which can reach 70 meters deep, is a rare phenomenon due to exceptional erosion, the extent of which is linked in particular to uncontrolled urbanization and the increase in deforestation in recent years.
The state of “public calamity” decreed
There are 26 in Buriticupu, known as “voçorocas”, a term which means “torn earth” in the indigenous Tupi-Guarani language. Seen from the sky, they look like canyons that gradually cut into the city. Erosion begins with simple cracks in the ground, which deepen over time.
The town hall decreed a state of “public calamity” on April 26, and hopes to obtain funds from Maranhao and the federal government to begin containment work soon. Since the formation of the first crater, about twenty years ago, seven people have died falling into precipices and about fifty houses have been swallowed up. About 300 others are threatened, according to the town hall of this town, which has experienced strong urban expansion since the 1970s. And each time it rains, the craters widen a little more.
Soil erosion has much more devastating effects than elsewhere in Buritucupu, due to “unplanned urban expansion, with a faulty water sanitation system”, explains Augusto Carvalho Campos, geographer of the Federal University of Maranhao and author of a study on the voçorocas.
“It’s scary to live here”
Another aggravating factor: rampant deforestation due to logging in recent decades has drastically reduced the water retention capacity of this sandy soil. “It would be necessary to do containment work, but also to replant trees on the edge of the craters”, estimates the geographer. Since most homes are without mains drainage, sewage often flows into craters, which only worsens erosion. Mayor Joao Carlos Teixeira, however, assures that “drainage and soil consolidation works” will soon begin.
Not enough to reassure Maria dos Santos, 45, who lives very close to one of the largest craters in the city, more than 60 meters deep, in the Vila Isaias district, one of the most affected. “This crater appeared three years ago. It’s scary to live here, but I have no choice, I can’t afford to buy a house elsewhere”, explains this woman. So now for her, with each storm, it’s anguish.