For the third day, Chile is battling the deadliest forest fires in its recent history, with several spots burned in the Valparaíso region, while the death toll already reaches 100 people and tends to grow in the face of devastation of entire neighborhoods, according to survivors.
Dozens of videos show harrowing scenes of devastation in various cities across the country.
The AFP team registered in that municipality sections of charred houses and carswhere thousands of residents were trapped for hours in traffic on Friday, trying to escape under a hail of forest embers.
In the city of Viña del Mar, also in the central region of Valparaíso, victims find themselves homeless and search for neighbors and pets among streets full of burned debris.
“There’s not even a house left here”regrets Lilián Rojas, a 67-year-old pensioner who lived near the botanical garden of Viña del Mar, who disappeared due to the fire, she tells AFP among the rubble and ashes of the neighborhood.
Viña del Mar, 120 km north-west of Santiago, it was one of the most punished areas due to the worst forest fires Chile has ever experienced in its recent history.
“It’s the biggest tragedy we’ve had since the 2010 earthquake,” Boric said, referring to the 8.8 magnitude earthquake, followed by the tsunami that occurred on Feb. 27, 2010, and caused more than 500 deaths.
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The fire destroyed the house he had built with his own hands over the years.
To describe the aggressiveness and speed with which the fires spread Friday afternoon in populated areas, Rojas said the fire overtook them within minutes.
They saw smoke coming from a distant light, he went “for a while” to his room to watch television and when he came out “to look outside, people were already running,” he recalled.
“I left the house, closed the door and left. I didn’t know anything else because I went to the center of Viña del Mar,” Rojas described, showing off her pink dress to emphasize, “Now it’s the only thing I have.”
“Time stopped, I don’t know if it was 4 or 5 in the afternoon (…) We have a forestry brigade next door, we have a water tap, they never used it. The firefighters arrived only at “he consumed everything. There isn’t even a house left,” summed up the horror of the pensioner, who lives on a pension of 206 thousand pesos, about 228 dollars a month.
The conditions
The meteorological conditions of the last few hours seem to provide a respite “with a coastal depression that allows the fire to cool”, said the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, referring to a phenomenon typical of the Pacific coast, which produces a lot of cloud cover, high humidity and therefore lower temperatures.
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“Conditions today are more favorable for the tasks of supporting victims and containing fires”, said the minister.
On the third day of the fire, the Las Tablas outbreak, the largest in the Valparaíso area, is still active and “covers a perimeter of 80 km”, Tohá said.
They are located throughout the region, known for its tourist beaches and wine production 17 firefighters, 1,300 soldiers and civilian volunteers who help fight the flames, but also the victims who have lost everything.
The heartbreaking testimonies of the victims who lost their homes and families as well as the images of the flames covering the populated hills of Viña del Mar, in the Valparaíso region, led Pope Francis to refer to this Chilean catastrophe.
Looking out the window of the apostolic palace, the pontiff asked for prayers “for the people killed and injured in the devastating fires in Chile”after the Sunday Angelus in St. Peter’s Square.
The High Representative of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, offered support to Chile following this new episode of “devastating fires with numerous victims, which remind us of the ravages of drought and climate”, he indicated in a message.
Over the last decade, episodes of mega forest fires have multiplied in Chile related to extreme weather conditions, high temperatures, prolonged drought, construction of houses on unauthorized sites and a large percentage due to human negligence.
A heat wave with maximum temperatures is overwhelming the South American cone these days, where the natural climatic phenomenon of El Niño is exacerbated by global warming caused by human activities, according to specialists.
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.