Firefighters Rescue A Kitten Clinging To Branch Over a Flooded River

A frightened white kitten clinging to the branches of a tree surrounded by floodwater was rescued by firefighters in the San Rafael neighborhood of Ciudad del Este, one of the areas worst hit by the swollen Paraná River.

Footage released on Saturday, October 17, by Itaipu Binacional, the company that runs the giant Itaipu hydroelectric dam, shows two of its firefighters steering a small red inflatable boat through murky brown water that reaches high into the trees. One of them, wearing a life vest and a red Itaipu shirt, stands up and reaches into the leafy branches where the kitten is perched. The pair briefly look for a rag to protect his hands. “Yes, it scratches a lot,” one says, before calling out “Come here, kitty” and telling his colleague to grab the animal from above. The firefighter pulls the stiff-legged kitten from the branches, kneels down and lays it on the floor of the boat, stroking its back and whispering “It’s okay, it’s okay” to calm it down. “No defenseless being should be left behind,” the company wrote, urging residents who have to evacuate to take their pets with them.

The Paraná has burst its banks after days of heavy rain, flooding low-lying neighborhoods across Ciudad del Este, Paraguay’s second-largest city, on the border with Brazil. Alto Paraná’s emergency operations center said that by Thursday, October 15, it had evacuated 347 families, or 964 people, mainly from San Rafael, although officials said many residents had refused to leave their homes even as the water rose. On Saturday, the city council put the number of affected families at 1,210, mostly in San Rafael and San Agustín.

Mayor Pedro Acuña said the river had dropped by about two meters between Friday and Saturday, but that homes were still underwater, and he urged families not to rush back. “If we find ourselves in an emergency again, we will have to get them out of their homes again,” he warned, with more rain forecast for the middle of the coming week. The city has been handing out food daily and running 11 community kitchens, while Itaipu, the Paraguayan Red Cross, the National Emergency Secretariat, volunteer firefighters and the military help move families and their belongings to shelters and safer ground.