Forest fires in Chile | Around ten deaths feared, state of exception declared

(Viña del Mar) Emergency services are activated on Saturday in Chile where a state of exception was declared the day before in order to fight against violent forest fires which are spreading in tourist regions of the Latin American country, raising fears a provisional toll of around ten deaths.



The fires have plunged the famous seaside resort of Vina del Mar (center), along the Pacific coast, in the Valparaiso region, into a cloud of smoke, and are threatening hundreds of homes, causing forced evacuations.

Firefighters have been fighting tirelessly since Friday against around ten homes in the regions of Valparaíso and O’Higgins in the center, but also Maule, Biobío, La Araucanía and Los Lagos, in the south.

“We have preliminary information reporting several people dead, around ten,” announced Sofía Gonzáles Cortés, the state representative in the Valparaiso region (center).

PHOTO JAVIER TORRES, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Fire burns houses in Viña del Mar.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric declared a state of emergency in order to “have all the necessary means” in the face of the progression of the fires. “All forces are deployed in the fight against forest fires,” assured the Head of State in a message posted on the social network the situation.

In the Valparaiso region alone, the fire devoured more than 7,000 hectares, according to CONAF, the Chilean national forestry office, pointing out the “extreme evolution” of the fire.

Images that have gone viral on social networks, shot by trapped motorists, show the mountains engulfed in flames at the end of the famous “route 68”, a road used by thousands of tourists to get to the beaches of Peaceful.

Never seen ”

“I had never seen something like this, it’s very distressing, because we evacuated the house, but we can’t move forward, all these people trying to get out and who can’t move,” confides Yvonne Guzmán, attached on the phone by AFP.

This 63-year-old administrator, who abandoned her house in Quilpué, a town located 90 kilometers northeast of Santiago, has been patient for two hours, “stranded” in her car with her nonagenarian mother-in-law.

“We received an alert on the cell phone and a rain of burning ashes started to fall,” she says, while messages from her neighbors warn her that the flames are approaching her house.

In the towns of Estrella and Navidad, 200 kilometers southwest of the capital, uncontrolled fires burned nearly thirty homes, forcing residents to flee to this area near the seaside resort of Pichilemu , famous for surfing.

Since Wednesday, the temperature has been close to 40 degrees in central Chile and the capital Santiago.

Authorities halted traffic on Friday due to “reduced visibility due to smoke” on Route 68 which connects Santiago to Valparaiso and leads to the wine region of Casablanca and the seaside resort of Vina del Mar.

“These episodes are more and more recurrent, which is why we see historic temperature records every year,” Pablo Lobos Stephani, responsible for fire protection at the Chilean channel, explained to the Chilean channel CNN. 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.


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