Different fires recorded simultaneously in the central region of Valparaíso, 100 kilometers east of Santiago, caused several victims early this Saturday, and the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, decreed a state of emergency due to catastrophe to mobilize the necessary resources. to face the emergency.
“We do not have a confirmed number of victims. We have different data, some reports speak of 10 people, others of 16, but we will have a more consolidated number tomorrow morning with daylight,” reported the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá.
Tohá said that it is estimated that there are a thousand homes affected and announced a curfew from 8:00 a.m. local time to noon on Saturday in several towns in the Valparaíso region to speed up the arrival of emergency services and avoid unnecessary travel. .
Among the sectors most affected by the fire are the towns of Quilpué and Villa Alemana and sectors such as El Olivar and the Chacao Canal, located on hills surrounding the coastal city of Viña del Mar.
“We are facing an unprecedented catastrophe,” the Viñamarina mayor, Macarena Ripamonti, acknowledged hours before.
At the stroke of midnight, the president, Gabriel Boric, decreed a state of emergency due to catastrophe in the Valparaíso region, which allows him to mobilize resources more quickly to put out the fires.
“The situation of forest fires, especially in the fifth region, is very difficult due to the temperatures and winds, but know that we are deployed to the maximum of our capabilities to face the emergency,” added the president.
The fires coincide with one of the most intense heat waves in recent years, with temperatures that have reached 38 degrees Celsius in the central area.
Due to the simultaneity of the fires, Minister Tohá said that it is suspected that they were “intentional” and warned that the region will once again register high temperatures over the weekend and strong gusts of wind, which can fan the flames.
Last year, Chile experienced the deadliest wave of fires in its history, which left 27 people dead and thousands of homes destroyed in regions in the center-southern of the country, such as La Araucanía, Biobío and Ñuble.
Experts attribute this to an unusual increase in temperatures and the impact of a forestry model based on the monoculture of pine and eucalyptus.
Although Chile has experienced one of the wettest winters in the last 15 years, specialists have been warning for months that the drought has not disappeared and that there is a high probability that fine, dead vegetation will develop in the south-central area of ??Chile. easy combustion.
