For me, there were two very different feelings: the first, of thanking God for life; We looked and everyone was alive, no one was hurt, without a scratch... and then, despair. Looking and not seeing anything else, not seeing your house, seeing everything destroyed, looking at your neighbors and seeing all the houses on the ground. This is how Wendi Luana Back, resident of Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, summarizes how she felt on the night of November 7, 2025.
That Friday, the city of 14,300 inhabitants in the central region of Paraná was devastated by a tornado classified as F4 on a scale that goes up to F5. Six people died and at least 835 others were injured due to the storm.
The winds reached speeds between 332 km/h and 418 km/h and destroyed 90% of the city's properties, including the home of Wendi and her husband, Emerson Vargas. That night, they were telling the family that the woman was pregnant when the storm caused a power outage during the celebration video. The scene was recorded; See the video in the report above.
The lack of light was just the first problem. Moments later, a window broke and fragments flew toward Emerson. The family ran to seek shelter in the bathroom, the room with the most reinforced structure in the house, and stayed there until the storm passed.
When they came out, they saw a scene of devastation. Among the neighbors, the atmosphere was one of panic when they saw the buildings on the ground.
As a new life formed in Wendi's womb, she and her husband rebuilt their own. Brick by brick, the house was rebuilt and prepared to receive little Mariana, who is four months old and has no idea what happened the night she was announced to the family. For parents, however, memories of that day stir emotions with each new change in time.
“There are difficult memories, we suffer when it rains a little harder.... It's a year to be grateful for our life, the life of our family who is here”, says the couple.
What was once part of the city turned into more than 60 thousand tons of rubble. Houses, stores and public buildings were reduced to mountains of structural remains and taken to the municipal landfill, where, a year later, teams are still working looking for what can be reused.
The state and federal governments have allocated around R$110 million in resources to the city since the tragedy, with the majority of this money going towards infrastructure works.
White zinc roofs cover almost all the houses, and wooden buildings are almost no longer seen, as they used to be. In the midst of the “new” city, residents struggle to overcome their grief, not only for the goods that were built over a lifetime and blown away by the wind in minutes, but, mainly, for the loved ones who have passed away.
Marilda Carvalho Risso lived and still lives in Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, but, on the night of the tornado, she was in Cascavel. She had traveled to attend the mass one month after her sister's death when her husband, Claudino Paulino Risso, died buried in the couple's home.
Minutes before, Claudino sent a message to his wife asking if it was raining where she was. However, the woman only saw it an hour and a half later. When she called her husband several times, he no longer received an answer.
Asked if, a year after the tragedy, she was able to smile again, Marilda replies that only “on the outside”.
“But I believe that, over time, we will get used to it, right”, he says.
Three tornadoes hit 11 cities in Paraná on November 7, 2025. The Environmental Technology and Monitoring System (Simepar) explains that the cold branch of an extratropical cyclone formed over southern Brazil favored the development of strong storm clouds over Paraná.
"Some of these clouds, immersed in an environment of high thermodynamic instability, intensified even further, evolving into the category of supercells, with characteristics of rotation around their vertical axis. The intense vertical shear of the wind and the transport of hot and humid air were crucial for the evolution of the storms."
Originating from a supercell on the border with Paraguay, the first tornado traveled 75 km between Quedas do Iguaçu and Cantagalo. At its most critical point, in Rio Bonito do Iguaçu, the “scar” on the ground was up to 3,250 meters wide.
The classification was F4 on the Fujita Scale, which goes from 0 to 5. A tornado considered “devastating”. The force was such that trees had their bark ripped off, and a 16-ton harvester was dragged away.
The second tornado originated from the same supercell. There were 44 km of destruction between Candói and the district of Entre Rios, in Guarapuava. Although it started as an F2, upon arriving at Entre Rios, it evolved into the F4 category. Containers were thrown 150 meters away, masonry houses were completely collapsed and one person died.
A second supercell spawned the third tornado, in Turvo. The smallest of all, at 12 km, was classified as F2, which causes considerable damage. He destroyed forests and buildings in the Cachoeira dos Turcos region.
