2024-02-04 06:02:08
At least 51 people have been killed in forest fires ravaging central and southern Chile, the deadliest tragedy of the last decade in the country, and whose death toll is likely to rise further on Sunday.
“In the space of a minute we lost everything,” said Luis Vial, a 69-year-old retiree, in tears, in front of the rubble of his house in the Villa Independencia neighborhood, where 19 people were killed. perished, on the hills of the tourist region of Valparaiso.
After a lull, fires have resumed in this region, where the famous seaside resort of Viña del Mar is located, whose beaches are popular during this period of the southern summer marked by scorching temperatures.
The number of victims continues to climb. The forensic medicine service had already recorded 45 deaths, but “six other people died in medical establishments,” Manuel Monsalve, undersecretary at the Interior Ministry, said on Saturday. For hours, Rosana Avendaño, a 63-year-old kitchen helper, feared the worst for her husband, alone in their house in El Olivar, a neighborhood in Viña del Mar.
“Unprecedented disaster”
In addition to the human losses, between 3,000 and 6,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by the deadliest forest fires of the last decade in Chile, according to the undersecretary. From the La Moneda Palace in Santiago, President Gabriel Boric, who flew over the disaster by helicopter, announced that the number of victims would “increase” given the “dimension” that “the tragedy” is taking, which has also devastated 43,000 hectares of forest, particularly on the Pacific coast.
The authorities introduced a nighttime curfew and new calls for evacuations were made. Around thirty outbreaks remained active out of a total of 92 fires recorded, and firefighters were trying to put them out using helicopters and planes.
“A sick man”
Firefighters have been fighting tirelessly since Friday once morest dozens of homes in the regions of Valparaiso and O’Higgins in the center, but also Maule, Biobio, La Araucania and Los Lagos, in the south. “The priority is the fires in the Valparaiso region, due to their proximity to urban areas,” Interior Minister Carolina Toha said.
These are areas located between 80 and 120 km northwest of Santiago, rich in wine, agricultural and forestry businesses. President Boric declared a state of emergency on Friday in order to “have all the necessary means” in the face of the progression of the fires.
“A rain of burning ashes”
Since Wednesday, the temperature has been close to 40 degrees in central Chile and the capital Santiago. “These episodes are more and more recurrent, which is why we see historic temperature records every year,” Pablo Lobos Stephani, in charge of fire protection at the Chilean channel, explained to CNN. Chilean national forestry office CONAF.
This heatwave resulting from the El Niño climatic phenomenon is currently affecting the southern cone of Latin America, in the middle of summer, causing forest fires worsened by global warming. After Chile and Colombia, the heat wave threatens Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil in the coming days.
1707031980
#dead #fires #Chile
