Caracas.- Chile has declared a state of catastrophe in various regions due to flooding and overflowing of rivers in the center and south of the country, Carolina Tohá, Minister of the Interior, announced this Saturday, local media reported.
In this sense, he indicated that the state of catastrophe allows speeding up certain administrative processes, especially after the first funds available to attend to the emergency begin to be insufficient.
Likewise, Tohá specified that, unlike what happens with the state of emergency, in this case a head of National Defense is not appointed nor does it generate a situation different from the deployment of the Armed Forces.
According to the latest balance of the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred), 419 people are homeless, 1,002 are located in shelters, and three are reported missing. Likewise, 253 homes were affected, 99 of them with major damage, while 2,759 people were left isolated.
The Chilean Minister of the Interior also explained that work continues in all the regions affected by the emergency, especially to find the disappeared and rescue those who are isolated because of the water. In this sense, she asked that the evacuation be respected in the areas indicated by Senapred.
For his part, the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, traveled to Talagante and spoke with the residents affected by the overflow of the Maipo River. “We are not going to leave them alone, we are going to face the emergency together with the entire State,” he told the press after the visit.
