Deadly floods in Rio - Carrefour Foundation

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Brazil : Brazil - Carrefour helps victims of deadly floods in Rio

The Carrefour Foundation is providing emergency assistance to the thousands of victims of the recent flooding in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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Since the beginning of January, five cities in the Rio de Janeiro area have been experiencing the most destructive flooding and landslides Brazil has ever seen. Some 800 inhabitants of mountainous areas in southwestern Brazil have already lost their lives in the floods. Nearly 8,000 people are now homeless and 6,050 are without any shelter.

To provide a quick response to the disaster, Brazil’s new president Dilma Rousseff decided to immediately release funds that had been earmarked for later social and economic development initiatives. She also decreed the disbursement of 780 million reais (€357 million) for reconstruction of the affected areas and, on Saturday 15 January, declared a three-day national mourning period.

At the same time, beginning on 13 January, the 10 Carrefour stores of the Rio area rallied around the cause. A display-based in-store information campaign was launched to encourage employees and customers to donate non-perishable food, hygiene kits, diapers and linens in collection bins placed in the stores for this purpose.

Furthermore, the Carrefour Foundation decided to also donate €250,000 for the purchase of 11,000 food baskets containing non-perishable food items (red beans, corn, rice, oil, tomato sauce, pasta, coffee, sugar and biscuits). Preparation and distribution of the baskets took place at the logistics platform of Carrefour Brazil’s distribution centre.

More than 450 tonnes of food were collected at the end of January at the region’s 10 Carrefour stores. All of the donations have been delivered to the Red Cross.