Chile: they are investigating whether the start of the catastrophic fires was intentional and 370 people are missing in Viña del Mar

“All of Chile mourns Valparaíso,” President Gabriel Boric said from the central Chilean city, hit by the worst forest fires in recent history. Until yesterday the government had counted 122 deaths with at least 15 thousand homeless and 370 missing in Viña del Mar, while the investigations aim to establish whether, as suspected, The start of the fire was intentional.

Without electricity, little water and a lot of heating, the inhabitants of Quilpué and Villa Independencia, in the populated hills of Valparaíso, about 120 kilometers north-west of Santiago, suffer from a lack of basic services amid debris-covered roads, charred cars and ash.

“The most important thing in my house was saved, but now we can’t do anything anymore, not even charge our cell phones. Everything is devastated,” Patricia Guzmán, 63, told AFP from the flame-ravaged Canal Chacao sector.

The mobilization along the routes of the affected areas worsens with the arrival of volunteers, people who want to help families, assist pets, deliver food, water, tents, and even firefighters and official teams are working to search for victims in the places burned.

At the height of the southern summer, this area of ​​beaches frequented by tourists has most of its hotels without employees because they were hit by the disaster. The latest balance sheet proves it nearly 15,000 homes damagedas reported by the undersecretary of the Ministry of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve, who added that the greatest number of victims is concentrated in Viña del Mar.

These fires that started on Wednesday, in parallel with a heat wave with over 40 degrees, spread within a few hours on Friday and They are among the three deadliest of the 21st centuryafter those which occurred in Australia in 2009 (179 deaths) and those in Hawaii in August 2023 (more than 100 deaths).

The weather conditions have improved with a phenomenon typical of the Pacific coast, which produces a lot of cloud cover, high humidity and decreasing heat, although “there will be high temperatures until Tuesday”, said the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá. Crews were working to extinguish 40 outbreaks.

Yesterday researchers confirmed the hypothesis put forward on Saturday by President Boric, who stated that his government He suspected a criminal act behind the start of some outbreaks.

This Monday, the head of the National Defense of the provinces of Valparaíso and Marga Marga, two of the most affected, Rear Admiral Daniel Muñoz, reported the arrest of two suspects of having started the fire near the Botanical Garden of Viña del Mar, which was completely destroyed.

Arrests

“They were spotted by an Air Force helicopter and then arrested“the official said. However, the local prosecutor’s office decided not to formalize charges because there is not enough evidence to link them to the accident. Both suspects were then released and investigations continue.

In a conversation with ADN radio, Muñoz underlined that “in the origins there is, as far as we know, a pattern of behavior that indicates that there was planning, something orchestrated and organized”He added.

This was indicated by the regional governor of Valparaíso, Rodrigo Mundaca, who underlined the “manifest intentionality” of the forest fires. Regarding the possible perpetrators, the governor stated that “they are a handful of wretches and criminals who have come to destroy this city.”

The most affected areas are Viña del Mar, which has been overpopulated for decades without urban planning, with precarious and poor settlements.

These social factors, added to the complicated orography of the place, the prolonged drought in Chile and the extraordinarily high temperatures of the last week, have been the fertile ground for these incidents. It remains to be seen whether the hand of man intervened in the event.