Raised floors, hunger and rafts: Coping with the Negro River’s flood and drought

Beneath a narrow wooden bridge, hands on his belly, eyebrows furrowed and face twisted in pain, carpenter Gelson Fonseca da Silva, 43, looks to the horizon of trash and polluted water in the Educandos Stream, a tributary that flows into the Negro River, in Manaus. Over half of his house, built on stilts, is underneath the water. To adapt, he took old boards and created a sort of mezzanine above the surface. Ribeirinho peoples refer to this as a maromba. Standing on the raised floor in his kitchen, his head almost brushes the ceiling.

Stilt houses built on pilings are traditional Amazonian cultural structures that are usually constructed in areas along rivers or in floodplains. Even a 1499 report from sailor Américo Vespúcio makes mention of these structures being used by the Indigenous Warao peoples in the Orinoco Delta of Venezuela. Yet in contemporary cities, pressured by disordered urban growth, many end up as precarious housing.

The same is true in the Educandos community, with its 1,338 homes, nearly all built on stilts along the banks or over the stream of the same name – 31% of all homes in the neighborhood, based on information reported by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in the 2022 census. Most do not have running water or access to the wastewater system. There are 3,571 people living in the five census areas around the stream.

With no work, between his hunger and the garbage, Gelson talks about his experiences over the last five years in the Educandos community, in the central region of the city of Manaus. His house was inundated by water two years in a row: in 2021, when the Negro River climbed to 30.02 meters in its biggest flood since 1902; and in 2022, when the river rose to 29.75 meters, the fourth largest flood on record. The following years, in 2023 and 2024, there were record droughts, and the yellow house at number 136 saw the Negro River wither to a stream.

This year, it swelled to 29.05 meters, exceeding the Negro River’s severe flood level of 29 meters. The flood of 2025 is among the 20 biggest on the books, according to data from the Geological Service of Brazil’s Office of the Regional Superintendent of Manaus. This had a direct impact on 559,886 people and 139,976 families, according to the Permanent Committee on Tackling Climate and Environmental Events, formed by the Amazonas state government. Data does not show how many people lost or had to temporarily leave their homes. According to an August 7 bulletin, of the state’s 62 municipalities, 43 were in a state of emergency, 12 were on alert, one was at attention, and six were normal. There were no deaths on record.

Gelson’s house ended up half underwater. “Everything changed, especially when the river dropped. This year the flood came early. With climate change, the people here not only suffer more, but all of the neighborhoods flood,” Gelson says.

As morning turns to afternoon, the heat swells inside of the carpenter’s house. His hand is still on his stomach as he complains about his aching belly. In the kitchen, he begins to cook four eggs, but he won’t eat any of them. He will take the meal he is making to his grandkids, who are four and five years old. They live with Gelson and his wife, but with the flooding, the kids and their grandmother went to a nearby house that sits on higher ground and is protected from the water. Gelson still does not know what he will have for lunch. He might eat some sardines that came in a package of food distributed to him by the municipal government of Manaus two days earlier. He had managed to buy some cooking fuel a few days before, after two months without any.

Food is a constant concern. Fish is hard to come by, despite living in front of a river – overtaken by trash and sewerage. “We eat a hot dog, an egg… Fish when there is any. The food package [distributed by the city’s government] has sardines, rice and beans.”

A resident of the region for 23 years, Gelson says he sometimes thinks his life could have been different. What if the stream were clean? What if he had a job? What if he could build a home on higher ground? Yet all of these “what ifs” are drowned out by the urgency of today. First it’s extreme drought, then it’s smoke, suddenly it’s a flood, he says. It gets to a point where Gelson would like the situation to grow worse, because then the government will provide assistance.

“I’m not scared any more. When it gets worse, at least more help arrives, and I want even more to come, because every year we go through this sacrifice, this fight here,” he explains.

Ever since he can remember, Gelson has been at the waterside, steering a boat and fishing. His life has not changed, but the landscape has. Where there used to be trees, there are now plastic bottles. Fish have been replaced by floating instant noodle packages, and the pure water that used to serve for bathing and even drinking has turned into a stream of sewage. The calm of life on the riverside faded away.

“This was a good area for us to live in, it was always good, close to work, close to everything, it wasn’t polluted. We bathed in the river because the water was so clean. Not now, look how black, dirty, smelly it is. It used to be a little black, but it was clean, it didn’t stink.”

Gelson used to have a larger home, which he left because he couldn’t maintain it during the flood season. He thought that since his new house is smaller, it would be easier to raise the floor using makeshift pieces of wood. “Thank God the rain wasn’t very heavy this year, because if it were, I wouldn’t even be here. The water had already gone up to about here [he points toward the house’s roof].”

A carpenter, he has worked on boat renovations and loading ships at the Port of Manaus. He knows everything about carpentry and manual labor: how tough it is to find people who pay, and pay fairly, for your work.

“It’s hard, really hard. They don’t call us for jobs. My brother goes down to the riverside every day, to see if a job shows up. Sometimes I can get US$ 92, US$ 110 for a job lasting 20 to 30 days,” he says. He generally works for around US$ 2 to 4 doing manual labor jobs at the Port of Manaus, like unloading luggage and cargo. Sometimes, when the work pays well, he can make US$ 18 in a day.

Gelson’s grandchildren are beneficiaries of the federal government’s Bolsa Família program, giving them US$ 110 per month. He now hopes he can receive a home through one of the government’s housing programs, such as the Minha Casa, Minha Vida project or something similar.

According to the municipal government of Manaus, people living in areas affected by flooding are given 12 payments of US$ 110 to put toward rent, as established by Municipal Law 1.666/2012. These payments can be extended for another six months, according to the family’s needs. Yet this year, neither Gelson nor his neighbor Maria Raimunda do Nascimento Ribeiro, 41, saw any money deposited into their accounts. This meant they were unable to rent temporary housing for themselves until the water subsided or to purchase timber. Gelson rustled up some old boards and built a maromba in his kitchen. “They [the city government] come, look, and leave us waiting. I was registered, they came twice, they shot videos, they took pictures, and to this day I have yet to be paid, now it’s already drying,” Maria says.

When asked, the municipal government of Manaus says it helped 2,283 families by donating food and hygiene and cleaning kits in areas along rivers as well as in neighborhoods affected by the Negro River’s flooding. It said the city’s Civil Defense force built 3,000 meters of bridges, including in Educandos, and mapped 2,264 families in at-risk situations, working with other secretariats on supportive actions. According to the city’s government, nearly 5,000 metric tons of waste were removed from streams in the first six months of the year, and 4,890 storm drains were cleared to reduce points of flooding.

According to municipal government calculations, 1,363 families benefited from humanitarian aid in neighborhoods along the shores of the Negro River, including Educandos. In more isolated areas, the Manaus Solidarity Fund, which partners with civil society organizations, supported 920 families in 37 communities on the Negro and Amazon Rivers. The city’s government did not respond to questions about emergency assistance for families like Gelson’s and Maria’s.

The Office of the Municipal Secretary for Women, Social Assistance and Citizenship said 10,994 families received rent assistance this year. Of these, only ten are located in flooded areas of Educandos. Regarding Gelson and Maria Raimunda, the secretariat said they had both received assistance in previous years (between 2022 and 2023), following which they reached the 18-month limit on this benefit, and this is why they were not included this year.

Originally from the city of Iranduba, where she lived until five years ago, Maria came to Manaus with nothing but a backpack to find a job after her marriage ended. The amount she received from her divorce settlement was only enough for a house in Educandos, so that was where she moved.

Without any money, Maria was unable to build a raised floor to protect her belongings. Her bed, refrigerator and stove spent most of the flood under water. Her children later brought her a few old boards from inland, which she used to protect a few things. She was surprised one day by an anaconda who slithered out of her toilet. Other animals, like alligators, are also wandering around.

“It’s pretty complicated. You have to buy timber, because the Civil Defense only provides timber for bridges [built between the houses and for residents to circulate]. My things were all in the water, and I asked for two boards to put up my fridge at least. But they said they couldn’t give me any, that they only have wood for the bridge, because then everyone will want some,” Maria explains.

Balancing on the boards over the wet floor is a challenge, and Maria’s daughter, 25, who lives in the house next door, had fallen and hurt herself a few minutes before SUMAÚMA arrived. Maria has always lived with the ebb and flow of the river, but she says things have changed in recent years. “It’s very hot, very different, there are times when the drought is too great, there are times when the flood is too great. At first, everything there was in balance, it didn’t get too dry or too flooded. We don’t have the conditions to prepare for a flood like this, there’s no way, it’s just accepting it and praying some living soul shows up and helps,” she says.

For two months, Maria and her daughter and next door neighbor Natacha have worked at the Emergency Care Service maintained by the government in the neighborhood. A formal job that pays minimum wage, this is the first work she has had since arriving in Manaus five years ago. Maria says she “makes it work” with the Bolsa Família payments she receives and balances things however she can, divvying up her money to buy food, pay bills or access basic items like menstrual products. “I’m the dad, I’m the mom, I’m the leader, I have to see if they need anything, I have to get after it. We need different things, then there are lots of things that are already costly for us to buy.”

SUMAÚMA reached out to the state’s Civil Defense agency, which said the government of Amazonas started Operation Flood 2025 on April 16, sending humanitarian aid to municipalities that declared a state of emergency, such as Humaitá, Manicoré and Apuí. The agency also said these municipalities were sent “720 metric tons of basic food staples, 3,150 water tanks holding 500 liters each, 57,000 cups of potable water from the Amazonas state water treatment company, 10 water purification kits from the Água Boa program, and a Mobile Treatment Station for affected municipalities.” The office of the state’s health secretary confirmed 72 medication kits were sent to seven municipalities.

SUMAÚMA asked the Civil Defense force about specific actions in the Educandos area, but received no response. Questions about bridges, marombas and protections inside of homes affected by flooding in the community also went unanswered. Asked about actions to support families, the Office of the State Secretary of Social Assistance and Combating Hunger of Amazonas said its role includes “information about Unified Registration [for social programs], the Bolsa Família program, and instructing municipalities on accessing federal funds in relation to a state of emergency and public calamity.” It said the municipal government of Manaus, and not the state government, is responsible for rent assistance payments.

The areas inundated by flooding on the Amazon, the river that most influences water levels in the region, are concentrated in the lower part of the basin, including Manaus and interior cities like Itacoatiara and Parintins.

In light of the water shortages in 2023 and 2024, the flood in 2025 brought the region abundant water. At the same time, it is a warning of the greater frequency of extreme events associated with climate change, according to Andre Martinelli, a researcher in geosciences who also manages Hydrology and Land Management for the Office of the Regional Superintendent of the Geological Service of Brazil.

“What you see is the length between one event and another is growing. This is not a positive thing, to the contrary, it indicates an imbalance in the basin. Water shortages have already been found at monitoring stations that experienced peak flooding a while ago (between April and May), in the regions of Alto Purus and Alto Juruá. We need to prepare for this ‘new normal,’” Martinelli stresses.

In Manaus, for example, seven of the ten biggest floods on record since 1903 occurred in the last 16 years, according to Geological Service of Brazil data. Contrary to popular belief, not all hydrological anomalies can be attributed to the El Niño and La Niña climate phenomena, which are respectively related to abnormal heating and cooling of the Pacific Ocean’s waters.

Martinelli says most of the relevant climate models show surface temperatures in the Tropical Pacific Ocean are in a neutral phase this year, for instance. As the researcher sees it, the extreme events in recent years are an indication of climate change.

On the other side of the Negro River, crossing the Jornalista Phelippe Daou Bridge, a voice calls out incessantly after our reporters. Yone Vasconcelos Soares, 36, spent all morning at the door of her home in the community of Cacau Pirêra, in the greater Manaus metro region district of Iranduba.

Yone has reddish skin, straight dark hair, and a desperate look in her eyes. She is wearing an external fixator on one of her legs, a metal device that pierces through her skin, muscle and bone, attached after she was run over a year ago. The accident left her unable to bend her left leg, which did not fully heal and where there is still some exposed bone. The only place where she can move around is inside her home, by using her arms to drag herself. Going down the stairs or dragging herself across the thin board over the floodwaters that leads to the street is out of the question. “At times I despair in here,” she says.

The kitchen is nearly inaccessible: rotted wood threatens to give out and the floor is covered in trash and fish bones. A small makeshift stove sits in the corner. Some parts of the floor are missing boards – Yone began ripping out whatever she could use as firewood and to cook. There is no refrigerator.

“It’s really quite a difficult situation because I can’t walk, I depend on people’s help. In my case, it’s really hard for me to go down and make a fire. This leg of mine hurts a lot, it doesn’t bend, it’s like this all the time.”

Yone shouts to passersby on the street, asking them to at least bring her clean water to drink. Her stilt house has no running water, just a valve out in the yard, which is now underwater. “There’s no pipe, there’s nothing. I ripped two boards out of there [the floor], it’s where I get water, and I put it in a bucket to bathe, do laundry. And I do other things, you know? Like washing containers, washing here [the floor] where it was very dirty.” The water she is referring to is stagnant, clouded with pollution, and has countless snails.

Yone’s story is one more among the other 13,916 people who, according to the Civil Defense of Iranduba, were impacted by flooding in the municipality. Originally from Caapiranga, Amazonas, Yone has a one-year-old baby, but he lives with her oldest daughter, in Manaus. This is her first flood as a person with a disability. She cries when she talks about her life. She does not know how she will pay the US$ 37 in rent on her home or what she will eat. Or if she will have anything to eat. “My situation is tough, when I can, I buy some coffee, lunch from Dona Negona. In the morning she brings coffee and bread. Sometimes I’m so hungry, I ask someone for food, but people say they’ll bring me some and they don’t, then I’m really hungry.”

She receives Bolsa Família payments, but her benefits were blocked six months ago due to a lack of activity on her account. Yone had been unable to leave home to withdraw her money. So she lives off of donations. She says she is stuck and held hostage to a lack of accessibility, unable to resolve problems, like replacing missing documents. Yone has a broken old wheelchair, but if she wants to use it, she has to pay someone to push her as well.

“When everything was dry here, I would go down to the police station, Ms. Ana would help me pay my rent, give me some food. In the flood, my situation grew worse, because I have no way to go out and get anything,” she says.

Although Yone has not received any public benefits related to the flood, the Civil Defense of Iranduba said it has constantly monitored water levels throughout 2025, updating the records of residents affected. The agency pointed to actions it has carried out, like building bridges, donating timber to some families, delivering food to communities and distributing materials like sulfate and chlorine to maintain the Água Boa Project.

In the district of Cacau Pirêra, Iranduba’s municipal Civil Defense reported “over 4,300 meters of bridges were built.” Regarding food donations, the municipal government said deliveries of packages containing 15 items are being made in riverside communities, though details on these items were not provided.

When asked about rental assistance, the city’s Civil Defense force said the social assistance area handles this benefit. SUMAÚMA questioned the Office of the Secretary for Social Action and Combating Hunger of Amazonas about initiatives in Iranduba, but the agency merely repeated that it instructs municipalities on Unified Registration for social programs and the Bolsa Família program, without mentioning the region in its responses. We also reached out to the Office of the Municipal Social Assistance Secretary of Iranduba, but received no reply by the time of publication.

While he was working as a fishmonger at the Panair Market and in Cacau Pirêra, Adelmo Rodrigues, 70, known locally as Amazonino, watched discarded construction material float down the river. In mid-2005, he began calculating how much weight an empty 1.5 to 2 liter plastic bottle could hold until it sank. After plenty of testing, he found it could hold around two kilograms, so he started a project to make a sustainable raft.

“At that time, along the beach, it was some five or six meters of just bottles. We would walk through the middle of the bottles. Then I said: ‘My God, so much material to do something with and it’s rotting here…’ I thought about it. When winter came and the traffic stopped, I sat there gathering a bunch of stuff for a while,” he says.

Adelmo collected so many PET bottles that he was able to make a two meter wide by three meter long floating raft, covered with wood and larger pieces of plastic. Today, he has three rafts he keeps behind his house. This year, they were used to protect animals like ducks and chickens from the water, as well as seedlings of all of the vegetables and fruit he usually grows.

When the water rose, Adelmo put parsley, cassava, and banana seedlings on the rafts, along with seedlings of some plants he grows in his yard to bring in some income beyond his retirement payments. “If I could, I’d make some of these rafts to sell as handcrafted items. But I don’t have the conditions to do this,” he explains. He thinks the government could invest in sustainable rafts to generate income for the local population, but he feels this is a distant reality.

Adelmo has heard before about climate change and sustainable solutions on TV. He has also heard about COP30, the Climate Conference that will be held in Belém in November, but he feels excluded from the debate and is looking for strategies to adapt in relation to the climate crises. “I think it’s very closed, because they don’t generally call the public to make claims about certain issues. There, they deal with it however they want and that’s it, it’s done, and that’s how it is,” he says.

While he talks, he is again assembling on the raft the seedlings he took from his yard. His strategy was to keep at least one seedling of each species. That chunk of green sitting on the bottles is all that was left of his inundated crops. On July 29, the level of the Negro River had fallen to 28.55 meters in Manaus, just 50 centimeters below the highwater level registered this year – nevertheless, it is above the historical average for the period, according to the Hydrological Alert Bulletin for the Amazon River Basin, issued by the Geographic Service of Brazil.

Adelmo does not grow discouraged. He keeps working on his raft, carrying on with his life, and looking after his seedlings. He will wait for the river to go down. When everything is back to normal, he will have whatever he needs to start growing his plants again. And life will go on, at least until the next flood.