Chilean President Gabriel Boric declares state of emergency
The death toll from raging fires in central Chile jumped to at least 99 on Sunday after President Gabriel Boric warned the death toll would be “significant” as rescue teams searched devastated communities. rise.
Rescuers continued to battle fires in the coastal tourist area of Valparaíso amid an intense summer heat wave that saw temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) over the weekend.
Rosana Avendano, a 63-year-old kitchen assistant, was not home when the fire began to tear through Vina del Mar, the seaside city where she lives with her husband.
Avendano told AFP: “It’s terrible because I can’t (go back to my house). The fire came here… We lost everything.”
“My husband was lying there and he started to feel the heat of the fire and he ran away.”
She feared the worst for hours, but eventually contacted him.
“There’s not even a house left here,” retiree Lilian Rojas, 67, whose neighborhood near the Vina del Mar Botanical Gardens was also devastated by the fire, told AFP.
The organization responsible for managing the bodies of the victims said on Sunday afternoon that it had “taken in 99 people, 32 of whom have been identified.”
Earlier, speaking in Quilpue, a devastated hillside community near Vina del Mar, Boric counted 64 people but said the number would definitely “increase”.
“We know the death toll will increase significantly,” he added, calling it the country’s worst disaster since an earthquake and tsunami in 2010 killed 500 people.
street victims die
After flying over the affected areas in a helicopter on Saturday afternoon, Borik declared a state of emergency and pledged government support to help people get back on their feet.
Nearly 26,000 hectares (64,000 acres) of land had burned in central and southern regions as of Sunday, according to national disaster agency SENAPRED.
About 1,400 firefighters, 1,300 military personnel and volunteers are fighting the blaze, supported by 31 firefighting helicopters and aircraft.
SENAPRED chief Alvaro Hormazabal said that as of Sunday morning, firefighters were extinguishing 34 fires and another 43 had been brought under control.
Hormazavar said the weather “will continue to become complicated.”
Authorities imposed a curfew from 9:00 pm on Saturday (0000 GMT Sunday) and thousands of people in affected areas were ordered to evacuate their homes.
On the hillsides surrounding Viña del Mar, AFP reporters saw entire houses burned to the ground on Friday and Saturday.
Some of the dead were seen lying on the road, covered with sheets.
“hell”
The fires raged for days, forcing authorities on Friday to close the road linking the Valparaiso region to the capital Santiago, about 1.5 hours away, as a huge mushroom cloud of smoke reduced visibility.
Pictures posted online by stranded drivers showed burning mountains at the end of the famous Route 68, which leads to the Pacific Coast.
Interior Minister Carolina Toja said the weekend fires were “without a doubt” the deadliest fire event in Chile’s history.
“It was hell,” Rodrigo Pulga, from the town of El Olivar, told AFP. “I was trying to help my neighbors… My house started burning behind us. Ashes rained down. .”
Pope Francis, a native of neighboring Argentina, called on people to pray for “the dead and injured in the devastating fires in Chile” in a speech on Sunday.
The fires were caused by summer heatwaves and droughts caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon affecting southern South America, with scientists warning that a warming planet increases the risk of natural disasters such as heatwaves and fires.
Firefighters in Argentina have been fighting fires burning more than 3,000 hectares of Los Alaces National Park, known for its beauty and biodiversity, since January 25, as rising temperatures threaten to engulf more of the continent.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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