A year after F4 tornado, Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, in Paraná, is still waiting for new homes
Only 19 of the 320 prefab homes announced by Paraná's state government were built; the state and city now bet on 80 masonry homes, to be delivered by 2028.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, in south-central Paraná state, is still dotted with construction sites one year after the tornado that devastated the town, and the plan to provide new housing to those who lost their homes has made little progress, according to a report by Folha de S.Paulo. Of the 320 prefab homes announced by Governor Ratinho Junior (PSD), only 19 were built.
The units were to be built with the wood frame system, using ready-to-assemble wooden walls. According to Folha, most residents rejected the model, partly because of its size, about 50 square meters. Kerwin Kuhlemann, superintendent of programs at Cohapar, the state housing company, told the newspaper that many families had 100-square-meter homes before the tornado and that there was resistance to the technology, fueled by rumors about its durability.
The cost of 137,000 reais per unit led the Public Prosecutor's Office to open a civil inquiry into suspected overpricing. In a statement to Folha, the office said the investigation was closed after technical reports found no irregularities.
The contract with the prefab company was terminated early. In April, Cohapar signed an agreement with the city government to build 80 masonry homes, at a cost of more than 10 million reais, and another 24 will be funded by the federal government. The homes will be delivered in batches of 20, with the last one scheduled for June 2028.
Affected homeowners could opt for the reconstruction card, worth up to 50,000 reais from the state government. As of Thursday (5), 1,230 cards had been distributed, and about 50 families were still waiting for the benefit, the newspaper said.
Classified by Simepar, Paraná's weather monitoring agency, as an F4 on the Fujita scale, with estimated winds between 332 km/h and 418 km/h, the tornado damaged about 90% of the urban area and left six dead and hundreds injured.