The forest fires that affect the south-central zone of Chile leave at least 24 people dead, 997 injured and have completely destroyed 800 homes in five days, according to official reports released this Sunday.
Favored by moderate and strong winds and temperatures above 40°C, the fire devastated some 270,000 hectares in a region located some 500 kilometers south of Santiago.
The number of deaths “has risen to 24, because a person in Angol died, who was hospitalized and who unfortunately died,” the Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve, said this Sunday, according to a cable from the AFP agency.
In addition, there are 997 injured, 26 of them in serious condition. In the agricultural area surrounded by timber forests devastated by fire, scenes of plots reduced to ashes, dead animals and country people who suddenly lost everything are repeated.
Testimonies of the inhabitants of the burned areas
“Was a hell. I can’t understand how our houses (…) have burned down. It has been a miracle that some of them escaped from their house (from the flames), but the fire surrounded them,” María Inés (55), a social leader from the Diñico sector, in the municipality of Santa Juana, told AFP. the Biobío region.”And now we are afraid that the fire will return (…). Imagine, without water, where are we going to take refuge? Where? How?” she wondered anguished.
Miguel Ángel Henríquez, 58, a farmer from Santa Juana, in the same region, said he and his wife waited until the last minute to flee the flames, and that’s when they encountered firefighters and police officers. “A neighbor appeared and went into the fire to look for his animals, but he did not appear anymore, Don Antón. I yelled at him to get out of the fire, but he did not want to obey me,” he assured.
“I came home from work and I was already without anything, without a home. I was left on the street, arms crossed, now with my son, my wife, in a tent. I have no fodder for my little animals,” declared a resident of the town of Purén , in the region of La Araucanía, to Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN).
So far, 997 injuries have been registered, 26 of them in serious condition.
President Gabriel Boric attended the wake of a firefighter in the town of Coronel. “All of Chile cries with you. I am here to tell you that you are not alone, that Yesenia’s family (Muñoz, the deceased firefighter) will not be alone,” said the president.
On this Sunday morning, a drop in temperatures seemed to give a breather to the 5,300 brigade members and firefighters fighting the fires. According to the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred), the fires that are in combat went from 87 to 51.
“We are living a small window improvement of weather conditions during Sunday and Monday. That means that we are not experiencing extreme high temperatures,” Monsalve said, but warned that the thermometers could return to close to 40°C on Tuesday. The official assured that there are 10 people arrested for their responsibility in the start of some of the fires The red alert remains in three of the regions affected by the 260 fires still active.
“We face the emergency with unity,” said President Boric on his Twitter account. The president traveled again on Sunday to the city of Concepción, 510 kilometers south of Santiago, and visited affected areas.
Chile received international help to control the fire
International aid began to take shape with the departure on Sunday from Spain of a plane and a contingent of 50 people including specialists, soldiers and drone pilots. “We have just sent a plane to Chile with a contingent of the Military Emergency Unit to collaborate in the extinction and control of the fires that are plaguing the country. All our support for the Chilean people,” tweeted the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez .
The Chilean Foreign Ministry maintained that coordination is also being carried out with Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, the United States and Mexico.
The serious situation led the government to declare the constitutional state of catastrophe in the regions of Ñuble, Biobío and La Araucanía, which makes it possible to have additional resources to control the emergency, restrict the free movement of people and use the military forces to contain the disaster.
At the beginning of 2017, a chain of fires that devastated some 460,000 hectares left 11 dead, nearly 6,000 injured and more than 1,500 houses burned. The outbreaks had also started then in agricultural areas and forests, and advanced to populated areas.
